


Cold and Dark

by sparrowshellcat



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-03-09
Packaged: 2017-12-04 19:09:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 25,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/714043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowshellcat/pseuds/sparrowshellcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU of the movie. When the Man in the Moon chose another Guardian in the fight against Pitch Black, Pitch simply beat the Guardians to the punch - he went and found Jack Frost first. He knows what it's like for no one to believe, and what he's able to promise Jack is much better than the Guardians could offer.</p><p>Humans try to fight back - but how do you fight against the cold and the dark?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Холод и тьма](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019004) by [iginita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iginita/pseuds/iginita)



> _afterism was the artist for this story, for the Apocalypse Bang 2013, and the artwork she created for it was absolutely perfectly stunning. 
> 
> Please check it out!
> 
>  
> 
> [Art can be seen on Tumblr, here](http://afterism.tumblr.com/post/44964994601/my-illustration-for-the-brilliant-cold-and-dark)
> 
> \---
> 
> For more fic and art, you can follow me on Tumblr! [sparrowshellcat](http://sparrowshellcat.tumblr.com)

  _"After all, what goes together better than dark and cold?"_

  
+++

  
Santa Claus had one fatal flaw.  
  
Now, of course, if one were to ask Pitch Black, he would be very quick to point out that the old fool had more than just the one fatal flaw, but it was this one that really mattered, in the long run.  
It was, simply put, that he felt safe.  
  
And why shouldn't he? The Guardians were referred to as the "Big Four", but everyone knew that when it really boiled down to it, it was all about Santa Claus and that damnable Christmas. Oh certainly, children would eagerly put their teeth under their pillows and wait for quarters in the morning, and children would scramble through the bushes to find brightly coloured eggs, and parents would spin tales of slipping to sleep with golden motes as singers sang of _Mister Sandman, bring me a dream_.  
  
But there were only so many teeth in a child's head, and once they were gone, that was it, and there were great stretches of time between when a child might lose teeth.  
  
Easter came but once a year, and after the children had sorted through their eggs, and slept off the sugar sleep brought on by chocolate, they went back to dreaming of summer.  
  
And though he came to them every night, filling their dreams with wonderment, the Sandman was oft forgotten, and the world over, children protested, begging to stay up past their bedtimes, trying to put off his arrival as they begged for _just this one time, I just want to stay up and watch this show or read this chapter or play for just a little bit longer_.  
  
It was, in the end, all about Santa.  
  
He was the only one with avatars, the world over, for sometimes over a month before the day that was allegedly his, mockeries of him in red polyester suits and fake white cotton beards, sitting in tacky "thrones" in a series of malls, while brats clambered up into his lap and asked for all the things they thought they deserved for simply "being nice", the year long, faking their way through their lies when he asked if they had been naughty. Pitch knew that they had been, he could see the fear in their hearts as they genuinely wondered if this man was the real Santa, if this man could _tell_ that they had been little holy terrors for all the months leading up to the one where it actually _mattered_. Santa was the only one that got pictures of him stuck on walls, on cards, had little figurines made up of him to sit on people's mantles. The others, people knew their roles, but for _Santa_ they had poems that would allow them to describe him right down to his belly, his nose.  
  
And Santa was the only one of the Guardians that had glimmers of belief from more than just children.  
  
Adults didn't believe in the Tooth Fairy. They came to believe that it was their parents putting money under their pillow, usually long before they even lost their last baby teeth. Adults didn't believe in the Easter Bunny. They would be the ones going to the store to buy chocolate rabbits, complaining that they had to hide plastic eggs around the living room, and missing the fact that more eggs were found than they had purchased. Adults didn't believe in the Sandman. They would instead gripe that they never had time to sleep, and would scarce remember the glorious dreams they got even if the Sandman tried so very hard to give them something joyous.  
  
But they remembered Santa, and even if they had no children of their own, they would tell little ones that Santa would bring them presents if they were nice - even if it was just being used as a ploy to shut them up. Pitch could appreciate a good mite of bribery of brats. They would dress up like him, they would sing songs about him, they would warn that Santa could see if they'd been naughty or nice, they would joke that they'd seen mommy kissing Santa Claus.  
  
What it came down to was that they still carried lingering little bits of belief in him, even when they scoffed and told themselves that believing in Santa Claus was ridiculous.  
  
He defied any of them, if they heard bells on their roof on Christmas Eve, for their hearts to not immediately leap with a sliver of hope, their minds to flee instantly to a jolly old man in a red suit.  
  
Yes, Santa was safe.  
  
And it was because he felt so very safe that he never once questioned his security, the integrity of his home, his base at the North Pole. He was the only one of the Guardians whose home that any child the world over could simply walk into, if only they could find it, because he was the only Guardian that outright _advertised_ where his stronghold was located.  
  
To Pitch, it reeked of arrogance.  
  
Arrogance, and stupidity.  
  
Santa Claus, after all, was safe. He knew that his position as being believed in was safe, more secure than even the other Guardians, and he lorded it over the whole rest of the world. It sickened Pitch, to know that this arrogant fool was more revered and respected than he had ever been. That this Guardian, heady from that sense of security, from the knowledge that no one had ever, or would ever, be able to challenge his hold on the hopes and dreams and beliefs of the world's children, had become so careless as to let Pitch simply slip past his so called wards and dance about in his domain.  
  
Pitch had entered the North Pole for several reasons. Yes, he wanted to scare the old codger. Gave him a good heart pounding too, he had, which filled him with a giddy sense of glee, to see Santa Claus' eyes widen in recognition and terror. And certainly, he had wanted to see the globe for himself, to curl his magics around the little twinkling lights and all the children that they represented, to show that they weren't everything, that even Santa's perfectly secure position was still shakeable. That yes, even the North Pole could be destroyed if only someone could manage to strike more fear than hope in the hearts of the children of the world.  
  
Pitch certainly wanted to be that someone.  
  
But there was so very much more than that, and what Pitch wanted was even more elegant and simple than apparently Santa had bargained for.  
  
He wanted information.  
  
Forewarned was forearmed, after all. He had spent centuries rebuilding his strength, after the Man in the Moon had seen fit to create the Guardians and take the only thing he had - fear in the hearts of man - away from him. Pitch had not rebuilt himself haphazardly, and he had not made this foray into the North Pole prematurely. He had spent those centuries gathering every weapon against the Guardians and the Moon that he could manage, and to his immense delight, it was _knowledge_ that was his greatest weapon.  
  
It worked on the children - science was a delicious invention of the mortals, after all, it did so much to disprove the existence of the Guardians to those that might have believed for many more years if not for school telling them that _there was no such thing as magic_ \- and it worked, too, against these Guardians. That was what he wanted, there. Wanted to know about the globe, wanted to know what Santa's security was like.  
  
Wanted to know what the Guardians would do, if they knew that he was free from their influence, and once again ready to reclaim this world.  
  
He hadn't thought them stupid enough to assume he was gone and call all four of them together in one place, but apparently Pitch had overestimated the intelligence of the Guardians, after all, and they had all four bolted together, their words tumbling over each others in a cacophonous blend of sheer nonsense noise. He smirked from the shadows - because even in the heart of the Guardians' gatherings, there were always shadows - and watched them. They couldn't seem to come to any consensus, and though their discord brought him joy, he had to wonder if perhaps they weren't quite the foes he had remembered if they couldn't even trust their apparently leader when he claimed that their old enemy had returned. Perhaps this defeat would be even more sweeping than he had anticipated.  
  
But something happened.  
  
Something he hadn't anticipated.  
  
The Man in the Moon spoke up.  
  
Well, that is to say, that the Moon took a part in the conversation, but of course he didn't actually utter words, Pitch had never actually heard the Moon speak, he seemed as mute as the Sandman.  
  
But he certainly interfered.  
  
Yes, the Moon gave away that he was the interloper that Santa had seen - it was gratifying to see the Easter Bunny pale under his fur at that realization - but it was what happened next that was truly fascinating. Pitch had never seen this before - and why would he, he was the outsider creeping in, lurking in the shadows as he spied on them, silently thanking the Moon for pouring light into the North Pole sanctuary, for the sharp black shadows that were created in response to the bright silvery light - but as he watched, the symbol of the Guardians on the floor was lit up, and a massive crystal, far larger than any he had ever seen naturally forming before, rose from the floor. The Moon poured beams of light through the crystal, and it began to glow, an image forming above it.  
  
"The Man in the Moon has chosen another Guardian," Santa Claus said, and even with the distance between them, his booming voice carried through the silent, cold air.  
  
 _Another Guardian?!_  
  
That was _possible_? That could wrench Pitch's plans, he had not _planned_ for _another_ Guardian, and this plan was so _very_ carefully worked out against each of them...  
  
The cacophony of differing opinions began again, their words tumbling over each other as they argued about who their newest companion might be. Pitch drew the shadows closer around himself, embraced in a cloak of their darkness, and crept as close as he dared, shifting from the shadow of one pillar to the next, trying to find the place where best he could see the coalescing shape of light, wanting to know who his newest foe, the newest Guardian, would be. He had to know, because _he had to succeed_.  
  
The shape finished forming, and Pitch didn't need Santa Claus to say the name before he recognized the face. He actually took a step back, shocked, and quickly tugged the shadows closer around himself, so that his position would not be revealed, darting away to a thicker bank of shadows beside the massive fireplace. His mind reeled.  
  
"Jack Frost," Santa said, aloud.  
  
The babbling began again, as they argued, recited some nonsense about following the word of the Man in the Moon, that there was a reason for anything, perhaps spilling all of their problems with him.  
  
Pitch had stopped listening.  
  
He knew of Frost. Had never encountered him, but his name had come up on his searches for information. His name had been logged in his mind for a long time, because Pitch recognized something of himself in the boy.  
  
Jack Frost was the only spirit he knew of that no one had ever seen.  
  
No one believed in Frost - and Pitch knew, acutely, like a still pulsing ache deep in his chest, a sucking wound that had never healed, what it felt like to not be believed in.  
  
So Jack Frost was to be the newest Guardian, then, was he?  
  
Well.  
  
Not if Pitch got there first.

  
+++

  
It was sunny, where Jack was.  
  
Of course it was, nothing about Pitch's life could ever be simple or easy, everything had to be as complicated and difficult as possible. Standing in the shadow of a large elm tree, leafless and bare, yet, he glanced up at the shadowy outline of the Moon that still hung in the sky, watching over them, and resisted the urge to shake his fist at him. Would hardly do him any good to be angry at the Man in the Moon, and even if it did make him feel better, he should probably try and avoid drawing attention to himself. Wouldn't help, any, to have the Man in the Moon furious at him.  
  
Well, any more than he already was, that is.  
  
There was movement, to his left, and several children laughed as they dashed past, holding sleighs and making an uproar, chattering sounds that sort of fell over each other like the sound of water tumbling over itself in a brook.  
  
He hated the sound, frankly.  
  
Silence was a much better sound - a frozen river would be better, because at least then there would not be such a dreadful _racket_.  
  
He much preferred the sound of a child cowering silently in fear.  
  
Shifting from one set of shadows to another, this one behind a tall wooden fence, Pitch stretched himself out through the thin shadows, hating the sunlight and wishing he had a way to simply tug the clouds across the sun itself, to give himself more cover. He was able to slip himself thin, though, stretching himself along the length of the fence, to see further. There was movement, to the left, on the top of another fence, and Pitch arched a brow, mentally praising the tracking skills of his Nightmares. Jack Frost was sitting on top of that fence, that crooked staff of his, shaped like a shepherd's crook, dangling lazily from his fingers.  
  
Of course he _knew_ of Jack Frost. Had never actually met him personally, but Pitch had rather been lurking, as it were, in the shadows for the last... millennia, or so. Since the Dark Ages, he had been lurking in the dark places of the world, rebuilding his strength, getting himself ready for his eventual - and inevitable - overthrow of those damnable Guardians. In his search for whatever weapons he might be able to use, he had found - and at the time discarded - the idea of using Jack Frost in his quest.  
  
What he knew about the boy could technically fill no more than a note card, but based on what he had learned, he wasn't sure that any of the other spirits knew any more than that, either. He had been around for about three hundred years, he created snow and his namesake, frost. He was a bit of a brat, liked causing trouble, didn't get along with the Easter Bunny.  
  
And none of the children saw him.  
  
Pitch knew that pain, knew what it was like to feel impotent and helpless as insolent children walked right through him, as though he wasn't even _there_ , he had suffered the same indignity for more than long enough, himself. He, too, knew what it meant to not be believed in, to have no control over children's minds, to have no sway in their hearts.  
  
It had made him boil with rage for longer than he would like to admit, furious and willing to do nearly anything to regain his old glory. As he understood it, Jack Frost had never actually _had_ the power to lose, so he imagined that on one hand perhaps he should consider the boy _lucky_ , that he didn't know what he was missing. But on the other, he thought, perhaps, that he and Jack Frost were kindred spirits. Both alone in the hell that was the mortal world, and both knew the sting of the unbelievers.  
  
But then, perhaps he was simply being optimistic.  
  
Perhaps the Man in the Moon had chosen him because he was pure of heart, or some other equally as insipid reason. Knowing the Moon, it _would_ be something as foolishly simple as that.

But maybe there was some other reason, and maybe that would be why Jack Frost would be the perfect ally for Pitch Black. He had planned to wage this war alone. 

But with an _ally_ …

Forget his previous plans for the children of this world. They weren’t grand enough, for what he could do if he were not alone in destroying the Guardians. With help by his side, he could create a kingdom that only _he_ could rule. With, of course, someone at his side, to rule at his right hand. Pitch could share the power, because there would be _more_ power for having had an ally beside him to gain it.  
  
Jack slid off of the fence, and gathered up a handful of snow. Blowing on it, the mischievous spirit turned the ball to ice, then with a devious sort of smirk, threw it at one of the children that had dashed past Pitch only moments before.  
  
Simple fun, really, just trying to entertain the children, perhaps.  
  
Or himself, more accurately.  
  
Pitch pulled himself through the shadows, and caught the snowball out of the air moments before it would have hit the child's head, slipping back into the depths of the shadows before he was anything more than just a movement out of the corner of the children's eyes. It wasn't that he was hiding - it was simply that the time was not yet right. Not to reveal himself to the children of the world, at least, not yet. The time was coming, but not yet.  
  
It was, however, the time to draw the attention of Jack Frost.  
  
Frost, naturally, noticed when he caught the snow ball and it failed to hit the intended target of the back of the child's head. Frost's head snapped up, gaping at him in the shadows, and he grinned, before letting himself fade.  
  
Were he actually trying to get away from him, he would simply dash to a shadow that was out of Frost's sight. It wasn't hard. But he wanted to lure him along after him. He wanted Frost to see where he was going.  
  
So instead, he darted into a shadow of another tree, then another, then the shadow of a light pole, making sure to let the shadows drag just slightly behind him. He had to leave enough of a trail that Frost could follow him - but not enough that he could _tell_ that Pitch was _leaving_ a trail for him to follow. He imagined that children that believed would be liable to catch traces of his shadows, trailing behind him like the tattered edges of a cloak. He actually wondered, for just a moment, what the children thought of that - and decided that he was looking forward to seeing how, exactly, these visions played out in their nightmares tonight.  
  
"Hey! Wait! Wait up!"  
  
Ah, and that would be Jack Frost, nipping at his heels,  
  
Pitch smirked to himself, still holding the snowball cradled in his fingers. Wasn't sure why he was still holding it - except that as he twisted, slightly, he could see that Frost was flagging slightly. Maybe he'd lost track of him - though he doubted it, Pitch was deliberately making sure he _could_ be followed - or maybe he'd simply been distracted by the children again. They were, after all, playing as children were wont to do, tumbling over each other as they clambered in and out of a makeshift shelter, laughing as one of them tried to perch their sledge precariously on the top of the wall, perhaps to give themselves more of a push down the hill. Jack had turned, to watch them, a faraway look in his eyes that told Pitch that if he didn't get his attention back - and quickly - then he had lost him.  
  
His power _was_ weaker during the day. It was harder to fill a person with awe and terror when the damnable sun was lingering overhead, making everything _bright_ and _cheerful_.  
  
 _Well_ , he thought. _That will soon be changing, won't it?_  
  
Hefting the snowball that he'd managed to snag from Frost, Pitch considered the weight of it for a moment, then with a smirk, turned the boy's antics on his own head. After all, though he were an immortal spirit, Jack Frost really was just a child himself, wasn't he? So though the tactic may be juvenile, it certainly seemed effective to his mind.  
  
He threw the snowball right back at Frost.  
  
It slammed up into the side of the boy's head, exploding in a shower of icy bits that he knew were likely designed to melt and dribble down the back of a mortal child's neck, and though he were not mortal, Frost sort of stumbled slightly to the side, as though he couldn't quite believe that someone would dare to hit him with one of his own projectiles.  
  
Spinning back towards Pitch, Frost's brows furrowed over his sharp, silver eyes, and he knew that he had the boy's full attention, now.  
  
Pitch spread his hands, a mockery of a bow as he bent slightly, then he was gone from the shadow, and onto the next.  
  
This time, he didn't have to deliberately leave a trail for Jack Frost to follow, he simply barreled along after Pitch as though his life depended on it, whipping around corners at a reckless pace, gripping that staff of his tightly in hand as he clipped the edges of roofs, caught himself on ice-covered power lines to keep from overshooting whenever Pitch would shift his course again. The Wind was Frost's friend, he had heard once, and Frost liked to catch little breezes and eddies to carry himself through the air. Didn't really fly himself, then, but was certainly lighter than air either way. Pitch laughed to himself as he lured the boy further and further out of the town that he had found him in, away from those damnable children, and out into the forest that surrounded the town.  
  
Pitch was more at home, here. These were evergreen forests, and while he generally wouldn't find himself embracing something that had very much become part of the whole Santa Claus mythos - chopping these things down, shoving them inside their homes and decorating them with gaudy baubles in the hopes that they had been nice enough to deserve presents to go under it this year - he could certainly appreciate the fact that even Frost's influence didn't drive these trees into the same hibernation their now-skeletal cousins were in. This meant that even in the depth of winter, when everything was stark and bright, Pitch had deep shadows to work in.  
  
That was perhaps why he started showboating, here.  
  
As he lured Jack deeper in the shadows of the trees, he swept more around him, teasingly close. Near enough that more than once, Jack reached out, trying to catch hold of Pitch's sleeve, and more than once, he skittered just out of his reach, darting away, again.  
  
"Wait up!" Frost called, again. "I just want to talk to you! Who are you? Why can you see me?!"  
  
Taking pity on the boy - or perhaps because he needed not to antagonize him if this was to work - Pitch stilled, stepping out of the deep shadow of a massive tree, barely visible in the filtered light. "Surely, you have seen other spirits."  
  
Jack spun to face him, nearly overshooting in his haste to face him. He was gripping his staff so hard that his knuckles were white, but his boyish jaw was set, firmly, making him look less like the child that Pitch had initially thought he was. Frost was closer to being a man, really, than he was to being a boy, and had he been mortal, he would have guessed to be perhaps fourteen winters old. "I've seen lots of spirits. Who are you?"  
  
Pitch smiled, slowly, trying not to look quite as predatory as normal.  
  
He was fairly sure it hadn't worked.  
  
"My name is Pitch Black."  
  
Recognition didn't immediately flicker in the boy's eyes. It seemed he wasn't going to have a dawning moment of realization - Jack Frost genuinely did not recognize the name. Well, sadly, that was no surprise. Pitch hadn't been at full power in a long time.  
  
Slipping back into the shadows the way that another might slip into the water, letting himself be enveloped by them, Pitch emerged from the shadows just over Jack's shoulder, and delighted in the way that the boy scrambled to spin again when he spoke.  
  
"They call me the Boogeyman."  
  
Still clutching that staff between them like a shield, Jack backed up a few steps. "Now _that_ I've heard of. I thought you were just a story."  
  
Pitch didn't bother to hide the wince. "Mm. Is that what they've told you about me? Is that the story that the Man in the Moon is weaving, these days?"  
  
Frost rapidly took another few steps forward, looking up at him. "He _talks_ to you? Just.... he _talks_ to you?"  
  
He hesitated slightly, considering the boy. "Does he talk to you?"  
  
His eyes narrowed, jaw set, he looked up at Pitch, trying to figure out, clearly, why he had answered a question with another question. His mouth worked slightly, as though he was fighting with himself, wanting to speak, but finally, Frost said, "He did, once. He told me my name. Never answered again."  
  
"Ah. Well.... the Man in the Moon tends to be rather... enigmatic," Pitch agreed, dipping his head slightly as he began to circle the other spirit in a manner that was somewhat reminiscent of a circling shark. He could use this. "But he speaks to the Guardians on a regular basis. Advises them, as it were."  
  
The way that Frost crinkled his nose, and kicked at a stone with his bare toes gave Pitch a dark sort of hope.  
  
"Not a fan of the Guardians?" He asked, mildly.  
  
The silver haired boy let out a huff of breath, his hair ruffled by the movement of air, and shrugged, shoving his hands in the large pocket on the front of the sweater he wore. "Just... wish I knew what it was like. To be _seen_. To be... believed in, I guess."  
  
"Believe me, my boy," Pitch let a tendril of shadows curl out to slide silently over the back of Jack's leg, curiosity getting the better of him. Hm, the boy was as frigid to the touch as he had expected. "I know the feeling."  
  
"Yeah, but I've _heard_ of you," Frost muttered, kicking at the snow.  
  
"Being a Guardian has its... shortcomings, Jack Frost," Pitch purred, and watched as the other's head snapped up, as though he was genuinely surprised that he might know his name. "Far more than our situation has, though it may not seem that way, sometimes. Why don't we go somewhere more... comfortable, to talk?"  
  
Jack hesitated, brows furrowed. "...what do you have in mind?"  
  
"The Guardians aren't the only ones with their own realms."

  
+++

  
Unlike the North Pole, the Warren, or the Tooth Palace, Pitch Black's realm didn't really have a _name_ , exactly. If forced to come up with one, he might call it the Realm of the Nightmares, or perhaps the Palace of Fear, but he didn't like to give things names, because giving them names meant they were easier to explain away. When things were unknown, they were more terrifying, and they got under your skin all the faster.  
  
There was no actual location for his realm. Unlike the Pole, and the other realms, his could be wherever he needed it to be, whenever he wanted it to be there. Convenient, he had always thought.  
  
So long as there were shadows, there his home could be.  
  
He could feel the tension practically vibrating in his companion as Pitch walked up to the broken wooden bed that always marked the entrance of his realm, wherever it was, at the time. Rotten, the wood decaying on what had once been a strong bed, the frame did little to hide that below it sat a massive hole, an empty maw that yawned open in the ground, inviting those foolish enough to get lost to explore its dark depths. Ominous, perhaps, but Pitch had made a very good life for himself lurking under the beds of children. Frost looked apprehensive about entering, but he needn't have worried. It wasn't _him_ Pitch wanted to destroy.  
  
"Welcome to my home," Pitch waved a hand at the bed.  
  
"Looks like a bit of a fixer upper, you ask me," Jack said, hopping nimbly up onto the edge of the bed frame, poking at one of the cross-slats with the end of his staff, and watching as it creaked and broke under the pressure, part of the wood tumbling out of the frame and tumbling down into the darkness of the hole below it.  
  
 _Humour_ , Pitch smirked. _Jokes in the face of fear_.  
  
"Yes, I suppose I haven't done much with it in the last few millennia," he conceded, gathering the growing shadows from the trees around himself like a cloak. "Please, do come inside."  
  
Frost frowned slightly, running his tongue over his teeth behind his lips, then shrugged, and bowed towards the hole. "After you."  
  
"No," Pitch rested his fingers on the headboard. "After you, I insist."  
  
"Age before beauty." Jack shot back.  
  
"Mm. If you insist."  
  
Pitch gathered up the darkness, then blasted through the remaining structures of the bed - it was mere illusion, in any case, just there as a sign post, just as the striped red and white barber's Pole at Santa's realm, was - and plunged into the darkness of his home.  
  
He was showing... restraint. Trust, perhaps. To convince Frost that he could be trusted.  
  
And yes, he felt when that frigid slip of a boy slid down into the shadows, and entered the realm that was his domain.  
  
His home, Pitch supposed, must be an intimidating place, for the uninitiated. It was dark, certainly, but there was light here, stark and bright, throwing the shadows into even darker pitches simply because it was there. Everything had sharp angles, there were no curves anywhere, unless he could find a way to make them into a spiral, and everything was angular and jarring. Cave-like, in places, with stalactites and stalagmites that hung from the ceiling and floor like razor teeth, giving the impression that at any time, any of the tunnels might suddenly be revealed to be a beast that was simply waiting for someone foolish enough to walk into its maw so that they might be devoured. In other places, it was like a Roman Coliseum – oh, those were beautiful places of fear - with columns and staircases and walls that seemed to cage intruders in. Cages hung from the ceilings of the cave, metal and cold, useful in case of any need. Gliding from one shadow to another, Pitch waited for Frost to satisfy his curiosity, looking around, and fell almost casually into his throne, which was not made of shadows as someone may expect, but instead hewn from the living rock around them.  
  
Sprawled out in his seat, he waited for Frost to finish his exploration and come to see him, pondering whether or not he ought to create a seat for the other spirit, and in the end conjured something similar to his own seat, though much smaller and with much less grandeur, out of nothing more than rock and magic.  
  
"What's this?" Jack asked, not coming to sit, but instead standing in front of his globe, leaning on his staff.  
  
Trust the boy to not do what Pitch expected of him.  
  
Pitch rose, languidly, from his throne, and approached Frost slowly, calm even as the boy twisted to watch him coming. There was no need to rush, not here, no need to zip through the shadows and impress him with his speed and power - Frost was already here, and the time for the displays of power were over, for the moment. Now was the time to impart on the boy his diplomacy skills - which were, admittedly, rusty - and convince him to work with him before the Guardians got their hands on him.  
  
"Have you ever heard of Santa Claus' globe?" He asked, hands draped behind his back, glancing at the other spirit.  
  
Jack's silver eyes widened. "The globe that shows all the children that believe?"  
  
Pitch hummed, and nodded.  
  
"This isn't Santa's globe, though," Jack frowned slightly, trailing his fingers over the metal that formed North America. Filigreed designs of frost blossomed across the metal under his fingers, a frozen lace work that spread wider the longer his fingers stayed. "That one's huge."  
  
"So it is," Pitch agreed, nodding as he considered it. "This is mine."  
  
"Why do _you_ have one?" Jack dropped his hand, and the designs stilled. "No one believes in you, anyway."  
  
He bit his tongue. It would be so easy to snap at him, to correct him, but that _was not why he was here_. Pitch simply had to show him the error of his ways, that was all. "What I want to measure here, Frost, is how many children still believe in the Guardians."  
  
"A lot," Jack smirked, leaning on his crook as he looked up at Pitch, with a cheeky grin. "I mean, look at it. That's a lot of lights."  
  
"So it is," Pitch agreed, reluctantly.  
  
"So why measure it?" He frowned, brows furrowed.  
  
"Because those lights will soon begin to change." Pitch reached out to press one of his long, lanky fingertips against a single of the golden lights, for a moment. "Soon, they will stop believing."  
  
He lifted his finger, and the golden light was out.  
  
Jack shifted forward, quickly, reaching up to touch where the little golden light had been, eyes wide as he examined it - there was no evidence that the light had ever been there at all. "How did you do that?"  
  
"The child stopped believing," he said, with a little shrug, and a smirk. Of course he knew how, and why - his own Nightmares were currently circling that boy's bed, their breath snorting hot and steaming in the air around the bed as they walked, pacing in circles, and their report on the boys status was being delivered to him, as it happened - but he was more than willing to let it seem almost mystical and inexplicable.  
  
After all, it worked for Santa, it ought to work for him.  
  
Jack let out a long, stunned breath, fingers dancing over the lights, frost filigrees spreading like cold lace under them, across the metal.  
  
"You bring a certain... _touch_... to my darkness," Pitch murmured, almost catching himself off guard with the realization. It wasn't dark and evil and terrifying, the way that nearly everything Pitch Black did was, it was actually beautiful, really, the little designs. Certainly striking, against the darkness.  
  
"Yeah, well..." Jack laughed, the introspection disappearing off of his face as he looked up at him, bright and cheerful, and bounced away from him, circling the globe as he looked at all the different scattered lights. "I may as well be good at what I'm good at."  
  
"Mmm, yes, I suppose."  
  
"So what did you want to talk to me about, exactly?" Frost asked, settling finally, perched on top of the crook of his staff like he was a bird on a winter barren branch, his knees crunched up and splayed to the side like he was a gangly-legged sparrow, and grinned at him. Cheeky.  
  
"I have a proposition for you." Pitch stepped forward, hands draped behind his back, walking slowly around the globe. The shadows curled around his ankles, rippling slightly as they scurried about his feet, like smoke around a fire.  
  
"Oooh, a _proposition_. Sounds serious." Frost swung down off of his staff, swinging down about it like a fireman's pole, landing on his feet as he leaned on it, heavily. Apparently Jack had a problem with standing still, which was sort of interesting. Restless, perhaps?  
  
"Perhaps." He nodded, quietly, and smirked at the boy. "I believe that it would be in both of our best interests to... join forces, as it were."  
  
"Join forces." Jack repeated. "The Boogeyman and Jack Frost?"  
  
"Yes. I believe, between the two of us, that we could be _far_ stronger than the Guardians ever have been. You, yourself, you'd be far stronger than _Santa_ _Claus_ has ever been."  
  
"Yeah right," the boy scoffed.  
  
"Santa has control over the children of the world only once a year, Frost," Pitch pointed out. "Yet every time that those children stray too far from the safety of their homes anytime during the winter, _you_ remind them of your power with the pain in their fingers and toes. You are far more powerful than Santa Claus, Jack, you have more strength than even he."  
  
"In case you haven't noticed," the boy's smile had disappeared. "I am not strong. I am not _believed_ in."  
  
"That is where you are _wrong_ , Jack Frost." Pitch stepped forward, gliding towards him. He had a considerable height advantage over the boy, and he knew it, which could very well make him intimidating. Based on the little flitter-flutter of the boy's pulse in his chest, clearly his height did something for said intimidation - but the other spirit didn't move back. He held his ground. Impressive. Holding out his hand, he laid the flat of his palm over Jack Frost's heart, and said, quietly, "I believe in you, Jack Frost. I believe in you."  
  
Jack drew a deep breath, his chest rising and falling under Pitch's hand. "Well, that's awfully nice of you, but I'm not sure your belief _counts_."  
  
"I'm offended," he drawled, smirking slightly, and stepped back.  
  
Rolling his eyes, the boy hugged his staff a little tighter. There was something in the way he held his shoulders that said that he was trying desperately to be serious, that he wanted to look confident and in control - but his spine was stiff with nerves. He was off balance again. "Well, what good does it do me, that another spirit believes? I'm not seen by anyone."  
  
"Am I no one?" Pitch spread his hands out.  
  
"Do you twist everything that people say?" Jack shot back.  
  
"At times." He smirked, and started circling the globe again. "But you know the Guardians hide. They're seen by children, yes, but they deliberately hide so that the children will never see them. You get to walk among them, but no one ever sees you. Which, do you think, is better off?"  
  
"Why can't I be seen, and let them see me?" Jack muttered.  
  
" _That_ , my boy, is _exactly_ what I want." Pitch grinned, sharp shark teeth bared in a grin. "To be believed, to be seen. And to rule."  
  
"Rule?" Frost looked skeptical.  
  
"Mm. Certainly." He nodded at the globe. "The Guardians rule now because they are believed in. But imagine a world that is... always winter. Always night. You would rule _everywhere_ , and not just in the north, and not just when Santa Claus wants you for the _white_ _Christmases_ he's always raving about. All the time, Jack, in power, and _seen_. Doesn't it sound beautiful?"  
  
"Sounds impossible."  
  
"No... you see, all it takes... is belief." Pitch turned towards his glowing lights on his map again, and finger walked his way across North America. As his fingers walked, lights went out behind them - but a moment later, they lit again. Not gold, this time, though, but silver. "Do you see that?"  
  
"What is it?" Jack breathed.  
  
Pitch grinned down at him. "You _feel_ it, don't you?"  
  
Looking up at him, those silver eyes wide, he said, "I feel _stronger_. Like... like I've got so much more energy."  
  
"That's because the silver lights... are children that believe in Jack Frost." He tapped his fingers on the map, and though the golden lights continued to fade in spots, the silver ones stayed strong.  
  
"How is that _possible_?!" Jack looked up at him, sharply, eyes wide. "I don't understand! No one has ever believed in me, how come they suddenly do?! What did you do?!"  
  
"You know, of course," he answered another question with another question, "Of Sandman?"  
  
Frost huffed, brows furrowed. "Course."  
  
"And you know how he works?" Pitch continued.  
  
"With the golden sand." He frowned. "He sprinkles it on the children's heads, as they're slipping to sleep. He brings them good dreams."  
  
"Yes," he agreed, and stepped back to the shadows by his throne. "But Sandman isn’t the only one with sand, and dreams."  
  
One of his nightmares stepped out of the shadows, then, eyes bright and sharp, snorting at the air. Jack took a couple steps back, startled, and Pitch laughed, reaching up to rub the mare's nose. "Shh, shh, shh," he whispered to the Nightmare, but he was actually saying it to the younger spirit. "She won't hurt you. I won't hurt you, Jack, I believe in you, remember?"  
  
"Yeah well... it's a little terrifying," Jack murmured, stepping forward, warily.  
  
"Thank you," Pitch smirked, mock bowing slightly.  
  
"Is it... is it made of black sand?" He asked, frowning.  
  
"And shadows," He nodded, stroking the Nightmare's mane. "My pride and joy. They deliver my own special brand of dreams."  
  
"You bring all of the bad dreams," Jack actually looked horrified by that.  
  
"Well, I _am_ the Boogeyman. I sort of have a reputation of lurking under children's beds and haunting their sleep," Pitch admitted, still stroking the sandy mane, which curled around his fingers like it had a life of its own. "But no, I don't bring _all_ of the bad dreams. Some are caused by their parents yelling at them, when they were naughty. Or from reading those books that their parents told them not to. Or eating pickles before bed. Or... if you believe the old stories, from sleeping in the light of the moon."  
  
Taking another step closer to him and the mare, Frost scoffed, "The Man in the Moon doesn't give bad dreams."  
  
"Have you ever had him give you _good_ ones?" He asked, smoothly.  
  
Jack opened his mouth, to answer, then hesitated, and as Pitch watched, a look of dawning realization and horror crossed his face.  
  
Of course, to Pitch's knowledge, the Man in the Moon didn't bring any sort of dreams to anyone, good or bad. But the myth was certainly true, and he had heard it many times, when he was still young, as a spirit. Parents would tell their children that it was safer to sleep out of the light of the moon - and Pitch had certainly taken to encourage said belief. After all, the more they tried to get out of the moon and deeper in the shadows, the more power _he_ had over them. Frost had _problems_ with the Man in the Moon, though, he had all but said so, earlier. It seemed wise to cultivate those problems into hatred. It would certainly serve _his_ purposes well, if Jack hated their patriarch.  
  
"I haven't cornered the market on bad dreams," Pitch said, at last. "But mine are so very much better than anyone else's. I simply gave my Nightmares something to bring to the children's dreams. You, Jack Frost. I sent them with you. And now... children believe."  
  
"But from _nightmares_!" He protested. "They _fear_ me!"  
  
"Would you rather be feared, and rule... or loved... and completely ignored?" He asked, smiling at him. It wasn't a comforting smile, and Pitch knew it, but it was his own.  
  
"I don't know, Black, I think... maybe this was a bad idea..."  
  
"But you haven't even seen what I have in mind for us, for our _beautiful_ conquer." Pitch stepped closer to him, and behind them, the shadows and magic twisted again, forming a stone cot, right behind Jack, pillowed with shadows. "We are meant to work together, Jack Frost. Cold and dark. We go together like a hand..." He held up his, then black sand encased it. "And a glove."  
  
"How are you going to show me?" Jack asked, warily.  
  
"The best way I know how," Pitch said, and sprinkled black sand over the boy's head.  
  
Jack's eyes widened in alarm, startled, then abruptly sagged, and he flagged, sinking towards the floor. Pitch's shadows caught him, curling around the small body, and shifted him carefully onto the stone cot. Leaning over the boy, Pitch watched his eyes moving, skittering, behind his eyelids, and drew the shadows around the boy like a blanket before sinking back to rest in his throne, watching Jack sleep.  
  
Let him see what he had dreamed up for them from the depths of the darkest shadows.

+++

The world was dark.

Jack flew through the air, catching the edges of the gusts of wind, and settled on the edge of the roof of one of the buildings, a town hall or something, he didn’t know – and he didn’t actually care. Resting his hand on the head of a large stone gargoyle, he stepped barefoot to the very edge of the roof, the wind still curling around him, brushing through his hair, though the white fur around the edge of his collar. Little soft tendrils of the fur brushed his cheek, teasing, but he ignored it. Used to it. 

The moon was the only light spilling out over the town that lay sprawled in front of him, except for a couple small pinpoints of torch light. It cast the whole world in a blue light, glinting on ice and snow, the banks completely covering half of the buildings of the town. 

Drawing in a deep breath, Jack caught the bite of snow in the wind that still curled around him, and grinned.

There was snow everywhere. 

_ Everywhere _ .

+++

 

Jack felt sort of heavy, as though something very large had been set on top of him, pinning him down, preventing him from rising. For a moment, he struggled against the weight, then resigned himself to being held down, and opened his eyes, instead.   
  
To nothing.  
  
Confused, he shifted his arm - that he _was_ able to move - and rubbed at his eyes, looking around. There was nothing there.  
  
Just darkness.  
  
The longer he looked at the darkness, though, the more he finally realized that his eyes just had to acclimatize, and that there _were_ little pinpricks of lights, here and there, and the longer he looked at them, the more focused and bright they seemed to become, until they finally seemed to coalesce into a shape he recognized. Bright and clear and silver, they were the lights on that globe that Pitch Black had been showing him before...  
  
Before he'd fallen asleep.  
  
Well, _that_ had to be Pitch's fault, because Jack was proud to say that he was _not_ in the habit of just going to sleep, willy nilly, wherever he was, especially when that somewhere was technically in the lair of the spirit that was supposed to be the enemy of _all_ spirits. Though, Jack had to admit, he supposed - pre-sleep, that is - Pitch had really done nothing to make himself seem... like an enemy. And even then, all he'd done was make Jack _sleep_.  
  
Of course, that in itself was a little unusual, because Jack sort of didn't sleep. It wasn't that he _couldn't_ , or anything, because he'd never met a spirit that couldn't go to sleep if he happened to want to, but the simple fact was that he was a _spirit_ , and as such... well. He sort of didn't _have_ to sleep.

Didn’t have to do most things, really, like sleeping, or eating, or really doing anything other than creating the snowstorms – but he supposed even those he didn’t _have_ to do, he just did. Because it was _fun_. That was why he did most of the things in his life, frankly, because they were fun, and if he didn’t focus on the things that were fun, he was pretty sure that he was just going to go insane and turn into an actual raving ghost in the shadows, talking to flowers and raving at the Man in the Moon with absolutely no purpose or effect. And as… amusing, as that would probably be, for anyone to see, no one would actually see him doing it, would they?

Although… there were an awful lot of silver lights on that globe, come to think of it.

Maybe someone _would_ see him.

Shifting, Jack finally figured out why, exactly, it was that he couldn’t move. The Nightmare that he had seen before was laying beside his bed, its massive head pillowed on his chest. Its eyes were closed – Nightmares _slept_? – and when he shoved at its head with his spare hand, its ears just sort of flickered, and the massive shadow horse huffed. Displeased, he shoved at its head again, trying to get it to wake up. A moment later, the Nightmare’s golden eyes, malevolent and evil, snapped open. 

“Nice horsey…” he cleared his throat, not sure if it was going to eat him now, or something. Could horses eat people?

It whickered, a displeased sort of sound, and stood up. 

Jack watched the Nightmare walk away, then took a deep breath, and slipped out of the shadows that had wrapped themselves around him like a blanket, padding quietly and barefoot across the massive chamber. Snagging his staff from where it had been leaning against that globe, Jack considered the lights, frowning slightly. There were a lot of golden lights. 

But there were a lot of silver ones, too. 

Did children _really_ believe in him? 

“Ah… you’re awake.”

Jack spun around to face Pitch as he approached, frowning slightly. The Boogeyman was large and dark, but he wasn’t quite as absolutely petrifying as he’d remembered, from his nightmares. Before meeting him, that was. Outside of nightmares, he was certainly… terrifying. But he wasn’t… numbing. Jack’s blood didn’t run quite as cold when he saw Pitch in person. In his dreams – the dreams that faded all the more the longer he was awake – Pitch Black was so utterly and completely frightening that he seemed frozen in place. As though ice had formed around his feet and pinned him in place, leaving him helpless to the circling spirit. 

But in his dreams, Pitch had done more than just circle him.

Leaning on his staff, he frowned slightly, watching the taller spirit. Pitch stepped up beside him, his footsteps soundless on the floor, and stepped beside him, with his hands draped behind his back, quiet. 

“Yep.” Jack said, still watching the other. “M’awake. No thanks to you and your Nightmares… apparently they like using me as a pillow.”

“Mmm… they seem to like you,” Pitch agreed, a little smirk playing on the corner of his lips. 

 “Maybe they inherited that from someone.” He shot back, swinging himself up to sit on the top of the globe. Felt a little like he was towering over the whole of it, looking down at Pitch. Folding his legs, he lay his staff across his lap, and watched the other. 

Pitch didn’t look phased in the slightest. Dammit. He’d been trying to irritate him, at least it would crack that shell of his. Easier to figure a person out, if they got irritated, because they let out their real selves, when they did. “Perhaps they did. I told you, Frost, I think we would work well together. I truly believe that we could make this whole, _whole_ world dark… and cold.”

“Probably could,” Jack shrugged, frowning slightly.

 “You saw it, didn’t you?” Pitch stepped closer to the globe, tilting his head slightly to the side as he looked up at him, golden eyes bright as he looked up at him. Mischievous. Jack could appreciate mischief. “The world, covered in snow, the humans helpless against you. All of the children believing in you, you strong and powerful because of their… _belief_.”

“Yeah, I had your nightmare,” he slid off of the globe again, peering at Pitch through the gaps in the globe, considering him. He was tall, and lean, whip-thin and shadow-like, as though Jack could see through him if he tried hard enough. “I saw it. Saw myself living in a world where there was no light, and no summer, just… dark. All the time.”

“And _cold_.” He corrected, stepping closer, resting his hand on the globe.

Resting his hand on the other side of the globe, he said, “You said there were shortcomings to being a Guardian.”

“So there are,” Pitch dipped his head. “Well, you know what it means, to not be believed in.”

Jack shuddered slightly, looking up at the golden lights that showed those children that believed in the Guardians, still. They cast a golden glow on his hand, on his face, curling around him like warmth – and he was surprised to find that he didn’t really like it. He didn’t know what it was like to be warm. He remembered the cold, had never experienced the warm. Even in the height of the sunniest day, he was still cold. He was _Jack Frost_ , he was made of the cold. “Yeah,” he agreed, quietly, watching as frost curlicues and designs whorled across the metal of the globe. “I know what it’s like to not be believed in. No one sees you. No one knows you’re there. You can do things, but… you have no power.”

“That is all you’ve ever known, isn’t it?” Pitch said, his voice smooth.

 “Don’t need to rub it in,” Jack said, perhaps a bit sharper than he should have, fingers curled on the cold metal. 

“I was not trying to make you suffer more, Jack,” the other said, and Jack watched the Boogeyman as he rounded the globe, slowly. As he walked around it, the golden lights seemed to dim, in the shadows, but every now and then, another of those little silver lights would take its place. “After all, I’ve had my Nightmares spreading your name to the children the world over. I just meant, _Jack_ , that you are not alone. You have only ever known being skipped over by the children of the world. Left behind by those focused more on the _Guardians_. They see the _Groundhog_ , Jack, but they don’t see you. I don’t say this to be cruel. I say this because _you are not alone_. I too, have felt the indignity of being ignored. I was not believed in for longer than I _care_ to remember.”

Jack hesitated, looking up at Pitch, brows furrowed. “So if the children stop believing in them… they’ll become like we are?”

“Like we _were_.” 

The shadows curled around Jack, and he spun around, startled, trying to see where he had gone. The lights of the globe were suddenly _gone_ , but a moment later, light flared around him again, and he spun, startled. 

They weren’t in Pitch’s realm any more, they were standing on the roof of a building, the late evening sunset spilling pink and golden light over them. It was a high building, maybe an apartment building, the kind where they could see out over the whole of the city around them. Clutching tighter at his staff, warily, Jack moved closer to the edge, peering down at the city, then glanced back at Pitch. The Boogeyman was standing a ways behind him, his hands still draped behind his back as though he was perfectly relaxed, his black robes rustling slightly in the breeze. The West wind curled around them, ruffling both of their hair, and Jack could hear the soft whispered concerns in the breeze, as it wondered where he had been, why he had been hidden from them, before. Jack held out his hand, letting the West Wind curl around his fingers for a moment, to reassure his old friend, then dropped it back to his side, and turned to face Pitch properly. 

The Wind helped him, lifting him a little off the ground, so that he actually had a little of a height advantage on the other spirit – finally – and he demanded, “What are we doing here? Where did you take me?”

“Where is not important,” Pitch lifted a hand to wave off the concern, and began to pace around the roof. “What matters is what we see.”

Jack arched a brow, and shifted to the edge of the roof, looking down again. “…what are we seeing?”

Pitch was suddenly right beside him, and he looked at him, sharply. He wasn’t sure that he would ever actually get used to the other’s way of moving in the shadows, disappearing sometimes in flares of black sand then abruptly being somewhere else. Jack had never been able to do that himself, and while he’d clashed with Bunny a few times, he’d never actually met another spirit that could do this. Sandman probably could, but he’d never seen him to ever be in a _rush_ enough to move quickly like Pitch did. Hands still draped behind his back, Pitch looked down at the city, and said, “Look at it, Jack. There are people down there, moving about like this is all there is to life. They don’t know we’re here, they don’t know what we can _do_ , they don’t believe in us. But we could make them believe.”

“What, by sending your Nightmares after them?” He scoffed slightly, crossing his legs again, floating on the Wind as though he was sitting in a chair. West Wind always had been his favourite, for this. 

“It does work,” Pitch pointed out, with a smirk. “But I want you to think of this. How often do they, down there, think of the Easter Bunny?”

Jack blinked, startled by the question. “…around Easter?”

“Mm. And North? When do they think of him?”

Trying to figure out where he was going with this, Jack twisted so that he faced Pitch, and not the city, even though the other spirit was looking down at the movement on the streets below and not at him. “Around Christmas.”

“Tooth Fairy?”

“When they lose a tooth.” Jack let his staff rest just under his shoulder blades, and hooked both of his arms around it, like milk maids used to carry their poles, a bucket of milk hanging from either end of _their_ crooks. “And before you ask, I guess they think of Sandman only when they have really good dreams, and they think of the Leprechaun around St. Patrick’s day, and the Groundhog around Groundhog’s Day, and the same for all the other spirits. They think about them when their days come up.”

“And when do they think of the cold, Jack?” Pitch finally turned to face him.

“…in the winter?”

“When it’s _cold_ ,” he shot back, with a smirk, then Pitch reached out, and caught the crooked end of Jack’s staff. Curling his fingers around the curved wood, he tugged him closer, and though Jack was startled, he let him. He could always get free when necessary. “I have said it before,” Pitch said, seriously, though there was that mischief in his eyes again. “And I will say it again. You are not limited to only certain times of the year. You could easily become more powerful than North. All you have to do is make winter last all year.”

“And how, exactly, am I supposed to do _that_?” Jack said, frowning.

“By working together,” Pitch’s voice was smooth, like liquid silk. “Do you know what happens when there’s no sunlight? When the world falls dark?”

“You rule?” He guessed, with a smirk.

“Yes.” He dipped his head. “But so do you, Jack. Because without the sun, the world becomes _cold_. You see… this happened once before. Long before you came into the world, the world was wrapped in something we called the Dark Ages. They were dark because there were no Guardians. There was no one to bring light into the world, and because my power is strong, it was _dark_. And it was _cold_ , Frost. As cold as you. The whole world was cold because it was dark, and it was dark because _I_ ruled it. All we need to do is make them stop believing in the Guardians, and the world will become dark… and cold.”

“…like an ice age.” Jack had read about that before, he’d never seen it, but he knew what it _was_ , he knew what it was like to be encased in ice and snow.

“Exactly.” Pitch smirked.

“You think the whole world would become cold? Even the warm parts?” He asked, leaning closer to the dark spirit, brows furrowed. It was actually a very nice thought, to be cold everywhere, to be surrounded by flakes everywhere, and not just when he created it. All the time, the whole world blanketed… 

“With time.” He nodded, hand still holding tightly to his crook. 

“And you’re not just doing this because you want to use me, or something, are you?” Jack demanded. Sure, Pitch claimed to believe in him. Pitch seemed to have sent Nightmares to bring his belief to children. Pitch was the one standing here promising him power and belief and a kingdom, really. But this was also the Boogeyman, and who knew if he was actually telling the truth? “You aren’t just trying to get me to freeze the world, then drop me the moment that the Guardians aren’t believed in, and you rule the world?”

He wanted to be believed in. 

Pitch said he believed in him, and while he knew he’d said that Pitch’s belief _didn’t really count_ , it did. He’d been the first person he’d ever met – mortal or spirit – that actually said that they believed in him. Jack honestly was starting to think that if he lost that belief, even if it had never really meant anything to begin with, that he may never manage to recover from that. 

Funny, that he’d managed three hundred years invisible and ignored – a day of being believed in, and he couldn’t give it up.

“I believe in you, Jack Frost.” Pitch said, again.

He pursed his lips, scowling. “You’re not just saying that?”

Finally releasing his staff, Pitch stepped back, and spread his hands out, bowing slightly. “I won’t lie to you, Jack. I want to rule the world. I want to embrace this pitiful planet of mortals with cold and dark, and I want to _rule_. That does not mean I must rule on my _own_. My kingdom… needs a right hand. I want you to rule this world with me.”

Narrowing his eyes at him, Jack considered the other spirit. He was the _Boogeyman_. He was darkness incarnate. 

How do you trust the darkness itself?

“The only things you can depend on in this world, Jack Frost,” Pitch purred, as he slipped into the shadows again, and one moment was behind him, then to his left, then brushing against his back as he whispered in Jack’s ear, curling his hand around his elbow, holding him in place before he could jerk away from him. “Is that the night will always be dark, and it will always be cold. What could work together better than us?”

Panting more than he needed to, feeling the wind curl around them both, Jack tried to concentrate on Pitch’s hand on his elbow, warmer than his own body but still colder than any human hand would ever be. Closing his eyes for a moment, he imagined the world dark, blanketed in it. 

Then he lifted his head, and twisted enough that he could see Pitch, even though he still held his elbow tight, holding him in place. 

“…what do we do, first?”


	2. Chapter 2

 First was making the children stop believing.

All of them.

Pitch had a very carefully worked out plan, for how exactly he was going to make the children of the world stop believing in the Guardians, to leave the world wide open and ready for himself and Jack to step into the void. There was a whole painstakingly created list of steps, and the first was taking out the Tooth Fairies and steal all of the teeth.  
  
Jack blinked at him. "...steal the _teeth_?"  
  
They were sitting in Pitch's realm again, though it did not look quite the same as it had before. The throne was gone, and instead in its place sat a low, round table, spread out wide over the space. Pitch was sitting in one of the two chairs, though neither of them would really ever stay if not needed, it was the magic that Pitch had created them with that kept them sitting there. Jack was sitting on the other chair, on the other side of the table, with his staff propped up on the edge of the table, though Jack wasn't sitting properly, he was sort of sprawled on the edge of the table itself, the toes of one of his bare feet actually curled on the very edge of the surface of the table itself. It was a strange sort of position he'd managed to contort himself into, and Pitch wasn't sure that if he tried he could actually get himself into that pose. The boy was making patterns on the table-top, little filigree bits of ice that spread across the black stone, some of them actually forming into shapes that Pitch thought he recognized, for a moment, before Jack would get bored of them and replace them with different patterns.  
  
"Yes." Pitch nodded, folding his hands on the tabletop, watching him. "Steal the teeth. It's essential."  
  
"...I don't get it," Jack admitted, brows furrowed over his startlingly blue eyes. "What good does stealing _teeth_ do?"  
  
"Do you know why they collect the teeth?" Pitch asked, leaning forward, considering him. He didn't want to insult the boy, to make him think that perhaps Pitch was patronizing him, but having Jack understand this - this was essential. If he was going to rule the world with him, he had to _understand_ things about this world and their powers in it.  
  
The boy crinkled his nose, and shrugged. "Magic?"  
  
"Well, yes." He spread his hands out, quietly. "This is true. There is an element of magic involved. However, the reason that the fairies collect the teeth is that each tooth contains memories of childhood. The best memories, so they say. They use them whenever they need to remind the children of why they believe in the Guardians. Because we want to ensure that the children _stop_ believing in the Guardians, we have to remove their ability to remind them. If they still had the teeth, they could make the children believe again. Defeats the purpose. So, simply, we need to remove the teeth."  
  
"...and do what with them?" Jack frowned.  
  
"Keep them here, likely. At least long enough to gain control."  
  
"And... the fairies? Why would we have to kidnap the fairies?" The boy asked, brows furrowed, so deep it created a dip in the middle of his forehead.  
  
"The easiest way to cause doubt for the children is to prevent the tooth fairies from bringing them their quarters, getting their teeth." Pitch explained simply, shrugging with one shoulder. "Imagine what would happen if millions of children woke in the morning, and their teeth are still there, and there is no quarter under their pillows."  
  
"They'd all lose faith," Jack said, realization dawning on his face as he shifted again, tugging his foot off of the table, and shifting so that he was kneeling on his chair. Leaning forward so that his entire torso was laying on the table, he crossed his arms, and pillowed his chin on them. "Pull it down in one night, practically, cause it would spread among the children..."  
  
"Exactly." Pitch nodded. "Then, once that is finished, we need to take care of Easter, which is just in a couple days..."  
  
"Heh... I'm not against ruining a few Easters," Jack grinned.  
  
Yes, he _had_ been right when he had thought that the animosity he'd heard of between Jack and the Easter Bunny would work to his advantage.  
  
"Exactly," Pitch nodded.  
  
"So... do you want me to come help capture the fairies, then?"  
  
And on this, Pitch was torn. On one hand, though the Tooth Fairy was by far not the strongest of the Guardians, she also was no pushover, and retrieving the teeth and the fairies might not actually be that easy. Though he had the Nightmares, it would still be nice to have some backup, and certainly Jack's strength and power would be an aid. Besides that, there was the importance of reassuring Jack that he was important, that Pitch did want him by his side, that he _did_ want to rule with him. If Jack came along, he would feel involved. On the other hand, though, this capture would probably turn to be a little more violent than Jack would have expected from their takeover, and he didn't want to scare him off, either. He wanted to cement the trust they had together more before Pitch started taking the time to nurture that violent streak he'd already seen developing in the boy. Biding his time might be wiser.  
  
Only the decision was made for him.  
  
One of the Nightmares stepped closer to them, lowering its head over his shoulder, huffing slightly as it looked at Jack with glowing yellow eyes.  
  
Pitch frowned, running his fingers up the side of the Nightmare's muzzle, and didn't like what it was telling him. The Guardians were scouring the earth, trying to find Jack Frost. Planning to bring him to the North Pole to inform him that he was the newest selected Guardian, no doubt, and at the moment, the last thing he wanted to do was introduce Jack to the idea that the Guardians wanted him. He wanted him on _his_ side, and while he was fairly damn sure that Jack had begun to trust him, that Jack was going to choose _him_ over those Guardians, he still didn't want to chance it. Even if Jack refused to join them, and tried to get back to him, their new, budding trust might be shaken.  
  
"I'd like you to stay here," he said, stroking the Nightmare's mane. "Get things ready for the capture, I've trained the Nightmares to capture the fairies, they're a little restless to get going, actually."  
  
Displeasure flicked across Jack's face. He _did_ think that Pitch didn't trust him to help him out.  
  
He had to nip _that_ in the bud.

"I need you here," Pitch said, smoothly, wanting to make sure that he didn't sound like he was desperate to get Jack to listen to him - he wanted to make it sound like he had planned this, all along. "To get things ready for the incoming Tooth Fairies. That way, I can go with the Nightmares to ensure that they are able to complete their mission without interference... after all, I'm sure they're likely to encounter Tooth, if not the other Guardians as well. Besides... I simply don't want to ruin the surprise."

"Surprise?" Frost's brows furrowed.

"Imagine this," he spread his hands out, invitingly, trying to pull him into the little vision he was working out, the picture he was trying to paint. "North, the Bunny, Tooth. They're weak, battered, they've lost all but a very few of their believers, and they can scarce _stand_ , much less do battle against us. Now, there they are, feeling like they're at the end of their rope, but they still have hope. They're thinking that 'oh, it's just Pitch Black, we've fought Pitch before, and we've conquered him before'. They are nearly defeated, but they have _hope_ , Jack, because they think that they can just do what they've done before. But then _you_ step out of the shadows, at my side, at your rightful place as a ruler beside me... _imagine the looks on their faces, Jack_!"

There was a dawning sort of realization in the younger spirit's eyes, like sunlight striking on the icy crust of a snow bank that had formed the night before, jewel like and bright. A slowly forming grin followed those lights in his eyes, and Jack laughed, brightly. "Brilliant, Pitch."

"I like to think that I am," he spread out his hands, a relaxed sort of thing.

He'd thought perhaps that it was going to be harder than this to get Jack Frost on his side, to get him, as he had said, at his side. But Pitch had also been right, he thought, in his assessment that Jack needed a friend, needed someone that not only saw him, but that understood him. Knew what it was like to be alone. All he had to do was appeal to his needs, and Pitch understood those needs. Felt them himself.

Jack shifted again, ever restless, and swung himself up onto the edge of the table. Sitting there, he lay his staff across his lap, considering Pitch seriously - or as seriously as Frost ever seemed to get. "So. What do you need me to do to get ready for the fairies?"   
  
  


+++   
  
  


"Don't worry," Pitch was saying, "The cacophony will fade as Tooth loses believers, they will stop flying."

Jack considered that, tapping the backs of his own ankles with the end of his staff as they walked, just walking on the balls of his feet as he did. He bounced slightly, looking up at the older spirit, who walked with his hands draped behind his back. "I dunno," he said, finally. "I don't mind it."

All of the cages - and there were _hundreds_ of them, it seemed, hanging from the ceiling like the low-hanging fruit of some dark orchard - were filled with a multitude of the jewel bright Tooth Fairies. They chittered and chattered at them, angry little voices carrying over them and forming into a sort of white noise buffer. What was louder, though, was the beating of their wings. They looked like hummingbirds, and they sounded like them, too, little whirring helicopter wings setting up a humming racket.

He didn't know, made it seem a little less... _hollow_ here, though.

Pitch glanced at him, then nodded, slowly.

Jack wasn't sure he wanted to know what, exactly, the Boogeyman was thinking. "So," he said, instead, to get his mind off of it. "How much of a fight did Tooth give up, then?"

The other grinned, then, toothily, those sharp little fangs glinting at him in the darkness of the cave, brighter than they should have been. "She tried her best, I suppose, but she was really no threat. And North and his... _Guardians_ , they weren't much of a challenge, either."

_ What did you do to him, Pitch?! Jack Frost isn't anywhere in the world, where did you hide him away? If you killed him - _

It had taken all of the effort and patience that he possessed to only laugh in Tooth's face, to not retort that _he's mine now, he's my ally now_ instead. He'd actually had to bite his tongue, to just grin at her, instead of gloating. But he was good at patience, after all, it had just been such a beautiful moment, but no. As he'd told Jack, he wanted to wait. He wanted it to be a surprise, to be revealed at the perfect moment, when Jack was stronger, when there was literally nothing that those damn _Guardians_ could do to try and seduce the other away from him. He was _Pitch's_ companion, not theirs.

_ These _ were the thoughts that were flickering through Pitch's head when he looked at Jack, not that the younger spirit knew that.

"How long do you think it will take, for them to stop believing?" He asked, alighting on the top of the globe again, crouching as he looked down at the lights. There were more and more of the silver lights scattered through the gold, now, enough that they seemed to be outshining them, and he could feel the strength of the children's belief surging through his frozen veins like quicksilver. Felt nice, this being believed in. Hadn't really known what he was missing.

"Should begin happening any time," Pitch touched the metal surface of the shape of Japan very lightly, and Jack watched as under his fingers, lights began to fade, already. "You see? The sun is rising in Japan, now, and children are awakening to discover that their teeth are still there, and that there are no coins left instead. There is no Tooth Fairy."

There was a wail of sound from the cages, and Jack glanced sharply at them. Fairies were clinging to the metal grating, watching the globe with as much attentiveness as they were, but they looked utterly appalled.

They knew what was happening, too.

That shouldn't make him happy, Jack thought. That shouldn't give him a bubble of joy in his chest that sang _now you know what it feels like!_ but it did, so he embraced it, curling his icy heart around the knowledge that soon the Guardians would know what it felt like to be _him_.

After all, he wasn't being mean, he wasn't being cruel. It just didn't seem fair.

"But not all of those children would have had a tooth under their pillow last night," Jack pointed out, leaning so far over the globe that he would have probably toppled to the floor if he hadn't thrust out his staff, thumping is solidly on the floor to brace himself as he leaned over. Pitch glanced up at him, and smirked, but Jack just arched a brow as if to say _I meant to do that_ , and continued. "So how come there are so many lights fading?"

"Children talk." Pitch smirked, and tapped one of the lights, which went out a moment later. "To each other. All the time. Imagine one little boy wakes to find that there is no coin under his pillow, just his tooth. He decides that this means that there is no Tooth Fairy. He goes to school. Heartbroken, he tells his friends, who tell their friends, and theirs, until finally..."

"A whole class of kids that don't believe in the Tooth Fairy." Jack said, slowly, in realization.

"Precisely. And if they don't believe in the Tooth Fairy, who is next?"

"Santa Claus." He leaned back, feeling as though someone had just opened his eyes for him, and he was finally seeing everything. "The Easter Bunny. _Everyone_! Groundhog, the Leprechaun, Cupid.... them all!"

"Even," he drawled. "The Man in the Moon."

Jack let out a long breath, eyes wide as he considered that. He leaned back further, resting his palms on the islands at the top of North America as he pondered that, then said, finally, "But if they don't believe in Magic anymore, why would they believe in Pitch Black and Jack Frost?"

"Because we will _be there_."

Pitch shifted through the shadows, and Jack managed not to jump when the other was suddenly crouching on the top of the world with him, though it was a near thing. He was simply not there one moment, and the next he was. _Well_ , he supposed, _That's sort of perfect for the Boogeyman, isn't it?_ Crouching beside Jack, Pitch said, smoothly, "Imagine this, Jack. Toothiana needs to exchange bicuspids for quarters. Bunnymund needs to spread eggs for them to find in bushes. North has to put presents under their trees on Christmas Eve. Sandman, well... they need to dream pleasant dreams, don't they? But we will _be there_ , Jack. It will be cold, and it will be dark. They will shiver when they think of you, and they will try to force themselves to stay awake, when they think of me. Together, we will _always be there_."

"Sounds logical," Jack conceded, at last. "It just seems... too easy."

"It _is_ ," Black purred, and Jack found himself lifting his head to consider the other spirit's face more carefully now that he was right in front of him. "That's the whole point, Jack! They have never doubted their strength in the minds of the children of the world, so they have never had reason to fear that someone might slip in through a chink in their armour. Only they have become so over-confident that it's not even a _chink_ , it's a whole wide open passageway for us!"

He leaned forward, which brought him within inches of Pitch, and said, lowly, "And if it doesn't work?"

"It will."

Jack watched the other spirit's face. He looked for any evidence that maybe he didn't quite believe that, that maybe he was lying to him for some other reason, some elaborate plan, but there was nothing but truth in those golden eyes. Genuine belief and conviction that _this would work_ , and Jack had to admit, looking down at the globe on which they perched, that yeah, maybe it would.

"All right. So we have the teeth, and we have the fairies. What's the next step?"   
  
  


+++   
  
  


Kidnapping the fairies, Frost had felt a little guilty. Pitch had seen it in the line of his shoulders, the way that his eyes would flick to the cages when he thought that Pitch wasn't looking, silver eyes dark as he considered them and their confinement. He had felt a little unsure about taking the teeth, and more than once, Pitch had seen him sort of poke at the few golden and ivory cases that had tumbled off of the massive piles that they had made of them, like he was curious to see what was inside, but wasn't sure if that was a good idea.

But smashing the eggs, _there_ Jack showed no sign of hesitation.

He'd sent the Nightmares to take care of it, seeing as how all of the eggs would have to pass through the tunnels from the Warren to get out into the world, and his realm butted right up onto those same tunnels, letting him pass between unhindered. But Jack had insisted on going with them, this time, to show that he was part of this too, and really, with all of the silver lights that now lay splashed across the globe as though Frost's ice had begun to glow, he couldn't deny him this. So he and the boy had gone with the Nightmares, shadows curled closely around them both to keep them protected from any prying eyes, just in case.

In the tunnels, though, free from the prying eyes of Bunny and the others, Pitch had pulled those shadows back, and let Jack play.

Because play, Jack did.

He was laughing, even now, eyes bright, grin wide. Using his staff like a pole jumper might, he swung himself around the narrow tunnel, launching himself with it to land hard on the eggs, smashing their thin shells with his bare feet. He would laugh every time that some of the eggs were demolished, shells lying scattered on the ground like brightly coloured bones, his laughter bright and silver like bells.

It was the laughter of a child, sheer innocence, and Pitch supposed that it ought to grate at him, ought to make him want to quash it.

But it _reminded_ him of something, something he couldn't quite describe, and besides, sometimes the most innocent of children are those that are most cruel in their untrained, untainted by "morals" way, so he left him alone, his own dark heart skipping along with the sound of the icy spirit's joy.

"Ah ha!" Jack laughed, spotting another egg that had tried to hide behind a rock, and skipped over to slam the end of his staff onto it, destroying the egg, then looked around. His chest was heaving as he breathed too hard, unnecessarily, cheeks flushed as he grinned, widely. "There any more eggs lurking about, for me to smash?"

"I think the Nightmares have taken care of the rest of them," he smirked.

"Shame. That was fun." He laughed again, a puff of breath.

"I'm sure there will be a lot of fun to come, in the future," Pitch laughed, despite himself, his own laughter less cheerful and innocent than Jack's, more like the sharp edges of broken glass, instead. Holding his hand out towards him, he said, "Come, let's see how the globe fares."

There was a fraction of a second where Jack seemed to hesitate, eyes on the proffered hand, then his grin widened further.

Frigid fingers slid into his, squeezing his hand tighter than Pitch would have expected, then a laughing Jack Frost was darting along the tunnel, dragging him along with him, calling for him to hurry up, they had work to be doing. Pitch let him drag him, sliding smoothly through the shadows as the boy few on ahead, caught by breezes that lurked, even here, for him.

Let the boy have his joy. It would be better if he _enjoyed_ what they were doing.

It was even infectious, it seemed.

Because Pitch found that he was smiling, too.   
  


+++   
  


"Look at all those lights," Pitch murmured, quietly, trailing his fingers over Europe.

"Sure is an awful lot of silver," Jack agreed, and he glanced over his shoulder to consider the younger spirit, who was perched on the top of Pitch's throne, one leg dangling down the back as the other knee was scrunched up to his chest. His staff was leaning against the arm of the chair, and though he was still as light as ever, the boy seemed very _at home_ amongst the shadows, now. One of the Nightmares was leaning against the chair itself, its dark head resting against Frost's side, and the young ice spirit was running his hands idly through the dark, sandy mane. The shadows would part for his fingers, disturbed into little eddies of black sand that would swirl for a moment, then coalesce in time for him to run his fingers on another pass through. It was a touching moment, really. Jack smirked back at his gaze, arching one of his brows.

Mischievous brat.

But then, that was sort of what Pitch liked best about him.

"How strong are you feeling?" He asked, letting his hand rest flat against the metal. It was funny, because these little lights actually had no temperature at all, they were magical lights. But he could swear, when he placed his hands over areas that still had lingering patches of gold, that they were warm - and when his fingers rested here, where the Nightmares had created the strongest belief in Jack, that the lights burned cold. Certainly cold enough for frost bite if he left them there long enough - or if he were more human.

"Like I could take on any of the Guardians with one hand tied behind my back!" He crowed, laughing.

"That's what I like to hear," Pitch grinned, dropping his hand off of the globe, and moving towards his throne. The boy towered over him, when he sat up there on top, looking down at him, like he was king of the castle, lording his advantage over him, but Jack just looked _happy_ , slightly paler than he had been before. Maybe, for someone made of ice, the more powerful he got, the more like his season he got. "Because I think it's time we started really exerting some of our control. After all, we're going to rule this world. It's time we started _ruling_."

"We're going out?!" Frost perked up at that. He was a spirit that thrived on action. On fun. He needed it, to live.

Oh, and this was _going to be fun_.

"Mmm, we are." Pitch held up a hand again, and wasn't surprised this time when the other took it, and let him swing him down to the floor, beside him. Frost was light, which might have been the fault of the Wind, because he was able to swing him as though he was lighter than air. "You see, the Sandman is still standing strong, trying to chase off the Nightmares. Naturally, of course, this is... shall we say, _difficult_ for him to manage. But all the same, I'd rather we try to take care of that nuisance altogether."

"So we're going to go make people stop believing in the Sandman?" Jack looked skeptical, leaning on the staff like he needed it to remain upright. "How do we do that? I mean, people don't exactly look for _the Sandman_ every night, he just sort of... comes. On his own. Whether they believe in him or not."

"Well, we just have to make sure he doesn't give dreams anymore." Pitch smirked. "It's like you said, people don't really need to believe in him, but so long as they dream the lovely little dreams his golden sand gives him, then he has power."

"So... how do we stop the dreams?" Jack furrowed his brows, creating a wrinkle on his forehead.

He reached out, and tapped that little furrowed wrinkle. "By stopping the Sandman, Jack."

"...that sounds a lot easier said than done," he said, at last.

"Mm. Perhaps." Pitch conceded, and held out his hand. The Nightmare that had been preening under Jack's attention before stepped forward, butting its massive head against his hand, hot breath puffing from its nostrils when he ran his hand down its neck, the sand stirring as he did. "But you see, these Nightmares are made from his dream sand. Well, what _used_ to be his dream sand... I've made it a little... darker. Better, if you want my opinion. All we need to do is make all the dream sand into Nightmares."

"And how do we do that?" Jack demanded.

"By making Sandman into a Nightmare," He grinned, toothily, at the boy. Jack didn't flinch, or look away - but he did furrow his brows again, seriously considering what Pitch had just said. "Trust me. But first, we need to get the attention of the Guardians. We need them to come to _us_."

"Here?"

"No... somewhere else. Anywhere, really, it doesn't matter, though of course I think it should be the last place they... expect... from either of us." Pitch reached out to brush his fingers across Jack's silver-white hair, running his fingers through the strands just as Frost had been doing with the Nightmare. He leaned slightly into the attention, as desperate for someone to give him affection as he ever had been, even though the name of Jack Frost was whispered from the lips of every Nightmare that Pitch had out there in the world, and children were now considering the frosty designs that formed on their window panes with a sort of shiver of fear running down their spines. He was believed in, but he had become so used to being alone that Pitch wasn't sure that Jack would ever truly get his fill of attention. That was all right by him, he could provide it as long as was needed. "I think you're powerful enough now that maybe we should start taking the world back from the Man in the Moon?"

"How do we do that?" Jack asked, eyes closed. He was relaxed in Pitch's presence, now.

"Imagine a world where the sun doesn't melt your masterpieces," he purred, still carding his fingers through the boy's hair, stark pale against his own shadows. "I'm going to make it dark,dark enough that the sun won't come out and just ruin everything the moment that morning comes. It's going to be night all the time, Jack, and _you_ are going to make it very cold."

Jack let out a long breath, eyes wide as he considered that for a moment. Then those silver eyes really lit up, and he crowed for joy, grinning up at Pitch, deviously. "Is it going to be cold _everywhere_?"

"Everywhere," he promised. "Even those parts of the world that get too warm for you to ever touch. The whole _world_ will know the power of Jack Frost and Pitch Black." Shifting his fingers around to cup his jaw, instead, shadows against the white of the snow, Pitch explained, "The whole of the world is ours, Jack."

"Ours," he breathed.   
  
  


+++   
  
  


Palms pressed against the glass of the window, Jamie watched the storm outside, panting softly. Every time he breathed, fog spread across the glass, melting a little of the frost that had filigreed across the window itself.

It was _dark_.

He glanced at the clock, frowning slightly, biting his lip. Only two in the afternoon, and there seemed to be no trace of the sun. His mother said that was why it was still snowing, even though it was after Easter and the trees had been budding just a few days ago, and there had been tulips and daffodils turning their bright and colourful faces to the sun not a week ago... His mother said that there must have been a volcano eruption somewhere, or something, she said that when she was a kid there had been an eruption that had blotted out the sun for a few days. But it was days already, now, all dark, and there was no sun yet. Just darkness and snow blowing across the world.

School had been cancelled all week because no one could get safely there, they said, and dad had stayed home from work all week, too. Sophie liked running about with a flashlight and shining it everywhere, and their parents joked and smiled and said that it was all going to get better, soon. Jamie didn't think they knew that he watched them from around the corner of the living room, though, when they sat in the kitchen listening to the radio on low volume, brows furrowed in worry as they tried to figure out what was going on and when, exactly, things were going to get better.

"Hey, Jamie.... don't stare out into the snow too long, you might start seeing things out in the storm."

He twisted to look up at his mother, who was smiling softly at him as she set a plate beside him. It was grilled cheese, again, and he could hear his sister protesting loudly in the background about _"Girled cheese again mama!?_ " but mom hadn't really been about to go to the grocery store all week, had she? He'd been reading his books, and he thought this sounded a bit like the storms they talked about in some of them - where people got trapped inside their houses until they ran out of food and turned into windigos that turned on the people around them and ate them in their starvation.

Jamie didn't think his mother would be happy to hear that he was reading those sorts of books, especially considering the circumstances.

"What sort of things would I see, mom?" He asked, pushing  his hat a little higher on his forehead - it was keeping his brain warm, he'd insisted, so his mother had sighed and left it, because frankly she had bigger things to worry about than his wearing his hat inside - and snagged his sandwich, taking a large bite.

She grinned, and pushed his hat back down, until it covered his eyes. "Jack Frost, silly bean."

"I thought you said that was just a saying!" Jamie gasped, shoving his hat back again, looking up at her with wide eyes.

"Well, you know where the story _comes from_ , right?" She asked, hands on her hips. She seemed, honestly, content that he was doing something other than staring into the storm for hours on end, and didn't seem to mind fueling some of his far-fetched fantasies for the moment, just to distract him from their circumstances.

"No! Where?!" He asked, eating without even paying attention to his consumption.

"From the story of Jack Frost," she said, grinning. "Some people call him Old Man Winter."

"...he's an old man?" Jamie frowned, crinkling his nose.

"I don't think so," she laughed slightly, grinning. "I think he's just an old kid. Cause he's mischievous, you  see, likes to nip at kid's noses and toes and he likes to get you lost in the snow."

"So.... is he evil?"

"Evil, Jamie," she said, in a statement that was sure to be some kind of prophetic, even though she clearly didn't know it, yet. Maybe never would. "All comes down to your point of view. What we may see as 'evil' is perfectly justified in someone else's eyes. And you can't call something evil for doing what is in its nature. I mean, would a cat be evil for killing a bird?"

Jamie crinkled his nose. "... _no_ , but I don't think it would be very nice."

"Maybe it wouldn't, but it wouldn't be wrong, and it wouldn't be evil," she smiled, softly, at him. "It would just be the cat's nature. So if Jack Frost were the one freezing the world, that wouldn't be evil. That would just be doing what he's made to do. It's his nature."   
  
  


+++

  
  
There was a child in the woods.

Seemed like a poor idea, really, Sandman thought, all things considered. In the woods? It was unseasonably cold out there - snow months later than there ever had been before, at least that he knew of - and the woods in the wintertime were _definitely_ not a safe place for a child to be sleeping. But the sleep sand told him that there was a child in the woods, a child in need of dreams, and there he went. 

Maybe he could give this child something especially good, a dream that would really make their night, to make up for the fact that they were trapped in the woods. 

He assumed trapped.

Who would _choose_ to stay in the woods in the middle of the winter?

His golden sand rustling softly as he drifted down over the snow drifts, between the trees, Sandman slipped down towards he could feel the child. He didn’t recognize them, at all, they felt completely new, like he had never given them a dream before. Were they a newborn child? He usually knew every child’s dreams, knew exactly what they would like, what visions to give them to fill their nights with wonderment. This child, he didn’t know. They seemed familiar, but not _known_. 

There was a form curled beneath a tree, curled between the roots, the snowdrifts forming a strange and seemingly accidental shelter around them. They were long and lanky – certainly not a new born – dressed in dark clothes with a hood pulled over their head, laying on their side, one leg curled up to their chest, the other sprawled out, bare toes curled on the frozen ground. Bare feet seemed like a _terrible_ idea, especially in the winter, and Sandman let out a soft rustling sigh with the sand, disappointed. He’d been pulled to these sorts of dreams before, children that needed sweet dreams to help them slip into the last sleep they would ever have, a dream from which they wouldn’t awaken. They were terrible things, but at least he could ease the child’s way into death with a sweet, good dream.

The boy didn’t move, as he settled just above him, golden sands shimmering slightly, and he leaned closer to him, to dip into the boy’s mind, to find out what sort of dream would be best.

All he found in the boy’s mind was _cold_ , sharp and bitter and jagged, like broken glass. 

Confused, he leaned a little closer, little tendrils of sand moving to shift the hood back, so that he could see who this boy was. He just seemed so strange, like there was something important about him, but he just couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was… 

The moment the hood was pulled back, though, the boy spun onto his back, and that wasn’t just a child that got lost in the woods, that was _Jack Frost_ , the spirit that the Man in the Moon had chosen to be new Guardian, that they had been looking for now for weeks without any luck, _here he was_ , but how was he coming up as a child that he needed to give dreams for, he was a _spirit_ , didn’t North say that only other spirits could see him…?

“Surprise.” Jack grinned, and wiggled his fingers at Sandman in a little, mischievous wave.

And then something slammed into his back, a sharp sort of piercing pain that caught him off guard. Sandman couldn’t remember _pain_ , but this was a sharp shock to him, hitting him to his core. He twisted, and there, behind him, stood Pitch Black, _the Pitch Black_ , who they had driven back into the shadows so long before, with black _sand_ curled around his hands. He knew what it was, he could feel his own sand in the darkness curling around Pitch, but it felt wrong, felt twisted and dark and demented. It had been perverted, its purpose changed from providing sweet dreams to providing nightmares. 

And somehow, that dark sand had just been driven deep into the heart of him, and Sandman looked down at his hand, which was pressed to his chest. 

Black sand was beginning to creep out from under his fingers, spreading across his chest, and he looked up, in alarm, gaping at the Boogeyman, who watched him with a devious grin. The darkness, the black sand, spread further throughout his body, like a cancerous growth growing rapidly. As the black sand spread, Jack Frost rose to stand beside Pitch Black, leaning on the Boogeyman’s arm as the pair of them – the Guardian’s enemy, and the boy that was supposed to be the new Guardian – standing side by side as they watched as the black sand consumed the golden, until completely, and abruptly, Sandman was gone. 

+++

Pitch didn't spend much of his time above ground. Why should he, when his own realm was really quite pleasant, as far as he was concerned, and there was simply too damn much bright and cheerful, above the surface. Under the ground was comfortingly dark and refreshingly free of those damn Guardians.

But things had changed.

Drawing in a deep breath that he could feel to the base of his spine, like a cold tingle that coursed through his veins, he spread his hands out, and indicated the whole of the world below them. "Isn't it _perfect_?"

The young spirit beside him, crouching on the edge of a rooftop as they looked out over a city that was enshrouded in a layer of snow - a city that had never _seen_ snow before, barely knew what it was except that it had been in movies and books, a city that didn't know how to function in the snow and was now as dark as the shadows that curled around them - grinned, and said, "I've never seen anything like it before."

Pitch had gotten used to the mortal instinct to chase him away, filling the night with lights of their own creation, trying to keep him at bay via their little circles of light. He could understand the instinct, even if it made him laugh - did they really think that he was somehow _harmed_ by the light, and that he couldn't merely twist it to his own purposes? Either way, though, there were no lights, now, no flickering bastions of mortal stubbornness trying to stamp out his power. Looking out over the darkness of the world before them, there was nothing but the stars - and the moon - over them for light.

"It's beautiful," Pitch breathed, finding his fingers curling on Frost's shoulder, squeezing slightly.

Jack leaned into the touch, and murmured, "There aren't as many lights on the globe now, you know that?"

He glanced down at the younger spirit. "This is true, there are less lights."

"And it's not just because of people not believing in the Guardians, is it?" He said, voice quiet. The younger spirit looked introspective, eyes not quite focused on the vista that was spread out before him, even though it was dark and cold and beautiful and everything that Pitch had promised Jack that it was going to be, when he had seduced, so to speak, the boy to his side. "It's not because there are people that don't believe in either of us, either, it's... it's because there's less people to believe in _anything_. Isn't it?"

Pitch let out a long, soft sigh, and crouched beside him on the ledge. The boy seemed somewhat curled into himself, shoulders hunched, knuckles white as he clutched maybe a little too tight to his staff. He should have seen this a long time ago. Should have noticed that Jack was getting a little more quiet, his silver eyes not quite as bright and excited as they had been, before.

Curling first shadows, and then his arm slowly around the other's shoulder, he was relieved when Jack, despite his apparent reservations, curled into his side. He'd tried to make Frost dependent on him. He hadn't failed.

Well, at least not completely.

Brushing shadowy fingers up the side of Jack's neck, he murmured, "Yes, there are less lights partially because there are simply less lights to shine. But when you conquer the world, there are certain to be casualties."

"I guess I didn't think about that," he admitted, quietly.

"Jack, they didn't care about you. Why care about them?" Pitch pointed out, and tried not to let himself pull back even when Jack flinched. He had to expect him to flinch, had to expect him to be displeased by this change. After all, this boy had been hardened by loneliness, but only for three hundred years. Even when Pitch had been forgotten for three hundred years, he'd still had faith, still had hope, still thought that _perhaps_ he might not be left in this abandoned hell forever. Despite the hatred burning in his heart, it had still taken Pitch a long time to become so hard, so jaded that he was willing to sacrifice the mortal life that once had sustained him. "Sometimes, sacrifice must be made for the greater good. People... _mortals_... may die. But when is the last time that one of them even _saw_ you?"

The other heaved a sigh, shoulders rising and falling, and Jack twisted slightly, looking up at him. "No, I get it. I just wish it wasn't necessary."

Pitch was caught off guard by that response. He hadn't expected exactly that, really - he'd been expecting a noble response, a genuine intention to save the world and the people in it, something... _heroic_ , perhaps. The boy had seemed to _enjoy_ spending his time with the mortals.

Perhaps Pitch was not as good a judge of character as he'd originally thought.

"It's what we have to do, right?" He asked, looking up to meet Pitch's eyes.

Well, perhaps he hadn't expected quite this response. Pitch Black, however, was nothing if not adaptable, and he was more than willing to turn this around to his advantage however possible, and he found himself grinning, wolfishly, at the spirit curled against his side. "Of course, Jack, we've talked about this. This is the world's natural state, isn't it? In our control?"

"Yeah," he nodded, sinking heavily against Pitch's chest, now, shifting so that he was all but in the shadow spirit's lap. "It's kinda... nice."

"Nice?" Pitch arched a brow.

"Okay, it's better than nice," he snickered, shifting in his lap, curling into Pitch's chest, a freezing little bundle of ice curled against him, wrapped in the shadows that surrounded him. Pitch curled them tighter around Jack, until he was nearly lost with him in the darkness, and found he didn't even mind the cold when Jack curled frigid fingers around his wrists, as though he was trying to get Pitch to curl closer. "It's amazing. The whole _world_ is covered in ice, Pitch! I could go _anywhere_ , and it would be _mine_ , you know what that feels like?!"

Pitch laughed slightly, one of his shadows skittering over Jack's pale hair. "I do now, thanks to you. Thanks to this."

"It's kind of perfect, isn't it?" Jack grinned, sounding as amused and joyful and bright as he ever did. There was no hint of the regret, of the concern for the mortals, that there had been a moment before. He was cheerful again, full of a zest for life that Pitch couldn't remember ever having felt himself, in the past. He thought, perhaps, though, that with the spirit curled in his lap, that maybe he could find that sort of joy.

To rule the world, to humble the Guardians, Pitch had only meant to make Jack dependent on him.

He hadn't meant for it to go both ways.

But the plan could adapt.

+++   
  


There were far fewer lights scattered on the globe than there had been, when Jack Frost had first been lured into Pitch’s nightmare realm. Together, the two of them ruled the world from that throne room – though ruling, in this sense, had very precious little to do with leadership or influence, and everything to do with the crushingly inescapable nature of their sphere of power – with Pitch on his throne of shadows, and Jack, ever at his side, making the world a very cold and bitter place. Their influence was ever present, the world kept tightly gripped in their frosty hold, weeks at the minimum since the sun had last dared to show his face.

Still, the lessened amount of lights was undeniably an _issue_.

Proportionally, Jack Frost had never been stronger. There was not a child out there that did not know his name, did not live with a healthy fear of the frozen one. They all knew his power, they all knew what he could do, and every one of them believed.

How could they not, when there was nothing that had not been touched by him? When no child, the world over, didn’t know at least one person who had either headed out into the snow and then never came home, or had huddled in the warmth of their homes until they ran out of food, or in a few cases, now, feared that either of those things _would_ happen so strongly that they had simply taken the choice of whether or not they would live or die out of Jack Frost’s hands. It was a bleak choice, but some had made it.

Still, Jack sometimes sat in front of that globe, silver eyes faraway as he counted the lights, lips moving without sound.

“You’ll make yourself sick, worrying like that,” Pitch said, as he stepped up to Jack’s side, his hands draped behind his back, looking down at the young spirit.

“Don’t think I _can_ get sick,” Frost said, and though his eyes had been lost in introspection, his smile was bright when he looked up at Pitch, again. “After all, I’m not really _alive_ , am I, and I think that if I _could_ get sick, I might have done it some time in the last, oh, three hundred years. After all, I haven’t really been keeping my feet warm, have I?”

Pitch just shook his head as the young spirit wiggled his bare toes at him.

“I’m just thinking, anyway, that’s allowed, isn’t it?” He smirked.

“Thinking, I suppose I could allow. The level or sarcasm that seems to spill from your mouth, _that_ I am unsure about.” Pitch shot back, and found himself just smirking to himself when Frost laughed, silver bell bright, joy and light. He often thought that by nature, he should be railing against that laughter, trying to smother it in darkness and silence, but instead, Pitch found himself encouraging it. Finding excuses to make Jack Frost laugh.

Funny, he thought, that as the world around them slipped to a final sleep under their control, Jack made him feel _alive_.

“Besides,” Jack stood, not like a normal mortal might, but instead like a marionette that has been pulled up by its strings, and set down again on its feet. Like that metaphorical puppet, he swayed slightly, then grasped Pitch’s hand, lacing his pale fingers through the dark ones, stark in contrast, and squeezed. He did this often, now, as though seeking reassurance that Pitch was _there_ , solid and not leaving his side. “I was thinking about what the lights mean.”

“They mean you are believed in. I would have thought that you would revel in that.”

“Oh, I do, I do.” Jack said, quickly, squeezing Pitch’s fingers again. “I _do_. But there are a lot less lights now, and I know that this _happens_ , that really, it’s natural, when the world is in an – well, an _ice age_ ,” Frost hesitated for a moment, clearly delighting in his ability to use that particular phrase and have it be accurate, then he shook himself slightly and continued. “But what happens when there are no children? When no one believes in us _or_ the Guardians, because there’s just no one left to believe in _anything_?”

“Are you worried that this is going to happen?” Pitch asked, quietly.

Jack didn’t answer with words, but he nodded, silver eyes not sparking like they were, even moments before. The young spirit was still joyful, but that joy seemed more tempered lately, with long lulls of silence and introspection.

It worried Pitch, sometimes.

“You think,” he reached up to trail his fingers across the back of Frost’s neck. The boy leaned into the touch. “That if there are no more children left to believe in you, that you will go back to how things were before? That you will be lost and intangible, alone and without a friend in the world?”

Jack swallowed, visibly, and dipped his head slightly. Agreeing.

Pitch hummed softly, and kept his fingers brushing the back of Jack’s neck, his other hand still entwined with the younger spirit’s holding onto him. Frost was not getting away from him. Not now. Not until he’d said his piece. “I know that fear, Jack. I’ve been there. Like you, I know what it is like to be cast adrift in this world with no anchor to ground me. I know acutely the pain that comes from being completely alone. I know your fear, because it is mine, as well. However, Jack, I need you to understand something.”

When he was sure that Jack’s eyes were firmly on him, that he had the boy’s full attention, Pitch continued, “You don’t need to feel that way anymore, Jack. No matter your fears, no matter how justified they may be, you don’t need to worry about them anymore. Do you understand? Even if every child on the planet died, and we were the only beings left, even if there was no child anywhere. You would never have to feel alone. As long as I live, Jack Frost, I _will believe in you_. You will never be forgotten. Never. Not so long as I am here to believe in you.”

He watched Frost’s eyes, carefully, trying to catalogue the emotions behind them, wanting to be sure that Frost _believed_ him.

Jack let out a shuddering breath, like the shivered exhalation of a man freezing to death in the snow, then he straightened up, frozen fingertips just touching Pitch’s jaw. Those frigid fingers were so cold it felt like they were burning on his skin, bitter and sharp, as Jack guided Pitch lower. He bent at the guidance of that light touch, obediently, eyes still meeting Jack’s, unsure what the younger spirit’s intention was.

Letting out another of those soft, unsteady breaths, Jack stretched on his toes – then he pressed frozen lips to Pitch’s, lightly, cold blossoming from that point of contact, making Pitch’s lips tingle from the chill.

The kiss was feather light and hesitant, and when Jack settled himself back on his feet, pulling back from Pitch, his cheeks and nose were flushed cherry red. Funny, that even when he was just flushed, as anyone else would be, on Jack Frost the embarrassment somehow managed to look like the nipped by the cold flush that a child might have from playing in the snow. It was, frankly, endearing. Frost looked… nervous. Like he was afraid of what Pitch’s reaction might be to his actions. It had been, after all, somewhat impetuous. 

Pitch, for his part, reached up to lightly hold Frost’s chin in his hands, and murmured, “Jack.”

He let out a breath that sounded like it should be accompanied by a whole body shudder. “…yeah?”

“Look at me.”

Reluctantly, Jack lifted his silver eyes, warily meeting Pitch’s. Reluctant to be rejected. Despite Pitch’s professions that he was always going to believe in him, Frost still feared that sting of disapproval, of being cut off from others. Of being alone.

Pitch held Jack’s gaze, long enough to make sure that he wasn’t going to look away again – then leaned closer, and pressed his own lips to his, harder than that first fleeting kiss, this time.

Possessive.

  
  


+++

  
  


Pitch didn’t usually sleep. Why bother, when he didn’t actually _need_ it, and usually only partook when he wanted to enjoy a particularly masterful nightmare he’d created.

That night, however, found him lying on the rough stone bed that he had made so long ago for the other spirit, shadows curled around him like blankets, while a slight, pale figure curled in his arms. Jack lay on his side, his back pressed to Pitch’s chest, one hand resting under his head as a sort of pillow, the other laced again with Pitch’s, his pale fingers weaved with the other’s dark ones. He was limp and relaxed in Pitch’s arms, sleeping with complete security, clearly not threatened by him, and trusting Pitch Black to watch over his dreams. His slow, even breaths ghosted over Pitch’s arm, where it was wrapped around the slighter form, a comforting cool brush that reassured him that the boy still dreamed, still slept on.

Pitch walked Jack in his sleep, watched his eyelids flicker slightly as he dreamed, and felt again what he had before – a fierce surge of possessiveness and craving, a need to keep the boy in his arms, just to himself, all for him. Forget the Guardians. Forget the children of the world.

Jack Frost was _his_. 

Leaning forward, he pressed a firm kiss to Jack’s temple. The silver spirit sighed in his sleep, and shifted in his arms, before stilling again.

His.

Pitch Black slept – and well – that night.

  
  


+++

  
  


There was a bright, glowing, golden light on the map, as bright as any of the others had been, before, even before Jack had first arrived in Pitch's realm, and brought change and magic and _life_ to a realm that had been markedly lacking in it, before. There were thousands of silver lights now, and nearly all of the golden ones gone, but _that_ light shone, bright and golden and healthy despite it all.

"I don't get it," Jack said, at last, leaning on his crook as he examined the map. "How come this kid still believes?"

"I don't know," Pitch frowned, touching the light, frowning slightly. It didn't fade like it should. He’d gotten used to them fading when he touched them, the Nightmares swirling around the child and convincing them to forget about those cheerful and happy illusions of the Guardians.

“…do you think maybe this kid doesn’t believe in me?” The other asked, quietly.

Frowning, he looked sharply at Jack. “No. There is no one that doesn’t believe in you. We are _everywhere_ in this world, Jack. You and I. Together.”

Jack glanced up at him, and abruptly grinned again, pushing himself over towards him with the staff, leaning on Pitch’s side, curling his arm around the taller spirit’s waist. “Aww, you say the sweetest things to me, Black. Really, you do. I’ve always liked your stupid smooth way of talking at – there are more lights.”

“Of course there are more lights – “ Pitch began, scoffing slightly at the argument, but the words died on his lips. Jack wasn’t referring to the still hefty number of silver lights that said that the cold spirit was believed in. Those, though fewer, were still strong. No, Jack was referring to something else entirely. 

He was referring to a sudden handful of golden lights that shone bright and startling amongst the silver. 

“What…?” Pitch breathed, stepping closer to the globe, spreading his hand against the metal of the world spread out beneath him, those golden lights shining bright despite him, despite the Nightmares that were prancing around those makers of the golden glow, chomping at the bit, trying to get at them, trying to show those children the darkness that waited, lurking, to consume them. That darkness had crushed everyone else’s belief in the Guardians, how had it gone awry _here_?

It was only a small scattering of slights, less than a dozen children, surely. Just a metaphorical handful.

But if those bright golden glows equated to a mortal child really and truly having faith in the Guardians… The Guardians regaining control of the world, now, could be disastrous. The sunlight would return, firstly, driving Pitch back to his shadows and obliterating everything that Jack had worked so very carefully to craft. Warmth and light would rule the day again. While Pitch was always willing to pick up the shattered remains of his short-lived empire and start again at rebuilding – hadn’t he already done so once before? – he wasn’t sure that Frost would be able to do the same so easily. Pitch had worked hard to get Frost at his side in the first place, and now, now that he’d had him at his side, in his arms, and in his _bed_ , Pitch found that his cold heart refused to accept a world in which he was forced to rule _without_ Jack Frost. If he had the world, he wanted it _with_ Jack. This meant, simply, that he needed to keep the world _now_ , needed to prevent the Guardians from regaining a foothold back in the world.

“I’ll take care of it,” Pitch said, abruptly, already moving.

“Pitch, wait!”

He froze when frigid fingers curled around his wrist, holding him in place. Looking back, gold eyes met silver, and Jack smiled, faintly.

“Let me come. If the Guardians realize they’re gaining believers again, who knows what they might do. They might even be powerful enough to be a real challenge for you.” Pitch noted that Jack didn’t say that they could be a match for him, or that they could stop him, but there was genuine concern that they might _try_ in those silver eyes. “We should _both_ go. They wouldn’t be any threat to the _two_ of us.”

Turning to face him properly, Pitch reached up to cup the other’s jaw, framing his pale face with his shadowed hands, brushing his thumb across a smooth cheek. “Stay, Jack. Watch the globe. Send out my Nightmares to anyone else that lights gold.”

Jack’s brows furrowed. “I can do more than – “

“I know.” He cut him off with a firm press of mouth to mouth, swallowing the words that Jack was trying to fill the air with. “I know. But I need to do this.”

He looked displeased with this argument, though his fingers were still tightly fisted in Pitch’s robes. “We are supposed to be equal, Pitch, so doesn’t that mean that we should be working _together_?”

“We _are_ equal,” Pitch promised, then amended, “Which is why I can’t lose you.”

Jack’s eyes softened, slightly, then he laughed, and playfully shoved Pitch. “All right, all right, fine. Go, you big lug, you. But you _have_ to be careful, and if you don’t come home to me, I am going to go out there and hunt you down myself, do you understand?”

“Understood,” Pitch promised, and bent to kiss Jack firmly.

This was more important than anything he could remember being, before. There had always been an aching hollow in his soul, a gap that no amount of child’s terror could fill, sitting empty as though something that he still couldn’t quite name had been torn violently from his life and then abruptly forgotten, leaving him to suffer forever with a vague need to find that something that had been stolen from him – but being completely unaware of what that something _was_. He wouldn’t say that Jack was filling that gap, because he knew – though he couldn’t put his finger on what exactly what _was_ missing – that Jack was not what had been torn from him. So while Frost may not be the plug needed for the cavity in his soul, Jack seemed to be such a raucous, boisterous welcome intruder to his life that, while  he didn’t fill that hole, he made his life so _different_ that Pitch found himself not caring that there _was_ an absence.

Jack made his life _more_ complete.

He simply refused to accept the possibility that Jack Frost wouldn’t be there, in it.

Pitch would sooner slaughter all the mortal children that he depended on, for life, for power, for strength, than to give up the pale dynamo of energy that he held in his arms.

Pressing another firm kiss to Jack’s lips, he promised, “I’ll be back.” 

Then he was gone.

 

+++

 

It wasn’t Christmas, not even close, but Jamie had still hauled out the sparkly green Christmas tree his mom had packed away in the closet months ago, hanging the lights and the shiny glass balls, then inviting his friends over. They’d been reluctant to trudge through snow so deep that the town had long ago given up on trying to keep it clear. Still, at his insistence, they had bundled themselves up, grabbed flashlights, and made their way slowly but carefully to his house. There, he’d plugged the lights into the generator – the power had long gone out, and though it was a waste his parents would probably never forgive, he rather thought that rebuilding morale was going to be a good thing.

Huddled together for warmth, clutching at mugs of the watery hot chocolate that Jamie had made them, his friends, that had been so beaten down by constant nightmares and the fear that they would never again see the light of day, listened as Jamie told stories about the joy of Christmas, about all the things he intended to buy with his Tooth Fairy money, about all the strange places he had found Easter eggs hidden. About the very best dreams that he had ever had, before the nightmares.

Their spirits had been crushed.

But it is the mortal condition, human nature, to _want_ to hope, to _want_ to dream that it could get better, and as Jamie talked, their eyes began to get bright again, the every colour changing twinkling lights on the tree catching like stars in their gazes, and he could see exactly when they started to believe again. 

Belief, for mortals, is a powerful thing. It lifts them up, makes the burdens of the world a less heavy thing, gives them a way _out_ , even if it’s all a matter of perception. It makes the heart soar, makes anything possible, makes the impossible seem without grasp. It makes the cold something that can be thwarted with enough effort, makes the dark something that can be beaten back with a flashlight wielded like a weapon. His friends smiled brighter, their laughter cutting through the shadows that had clung to them like cobwebs, lifting their spirits.

It was, Jamie thought, his cheeks hurting from smiling too much, laughing too hard, good to not be alone in his clinging to hope. 

After all, weren’t children supposed to believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny and be silly and have fun and not think about the serious things that were plaguing their worried parents, like what will happen when the food runs out, or when the fuel for the generators disappears? His mother had said that believing in things made them real. Maybe if he believed in the _good things_ of the world, good things would come back.

He had to believe, didn’t he?

He let his friends out, in the end, warmed from the cocoa and with promises that they would meet again, maybe have an Easter egg hunt of their very own, try to get the other kids to believe, too. Standing on the porch, Jamie waved as they disappeared off into the darkness – it was the middle of the afternoon, but it was as dark as midnight – then paused. 

In absolute darkness, streetlights long a thing of the past, now, how could there be something of deeper obscurity than the night itself?

But there was, he realized, heart starting to hammer harder in his chest as he watched the shadows, warily, as they moved, like a living thing, slowly coalescing into an actual form. A man, tall and dark and made of the shadows themselves – except for the dull golden glow of eyes that made him think of a cat stalking its prey in the night – stepped closer to him, teeth bared in a vicious grin. 

Jamie knew who this was. 

Of course he did, he saw him every night in his terrors, when he curled under his blankets and woke up screaming, this was the originator of his terrifying visions in his dreams, this was the reason that the sun had disappeared.

This was the Boogeyman.

_This_ was Pitch Black.

  
  
+++  
  
 __

_This_ was the boy? _This_ was the boy that believed?  
  
 _This_ was the child that was going to be the downfall of his kingdom and Jack's, _this_ was the one that was going to pull the cold one out of his arms?  
  
He was... insignificant.  
  
Little, just a child, really, still wide-eyed and innocent. Easy enough to crush, with just a hand he could gather him up and destroy him... Jack could have ruined him with nothing more than a single blast from his staff. He should be nothing, he should be absolutely no threat in the slightest, they should have been able to just step back and see him destroyed and never have to worry about the threat of the Guardians ever again.  
  
But he _knew_ this child.  
  
Not by name, necessarily, he'd never heard it. Wasn’t hard to learn it, he could pluck the name of any child from their nightmares, if he wanted it. But he recognized him. He'd seen this child, sled in hand, playing with his friends. Jack Frost had created a snowball especially for this child's head, and had Pitch not interrupted it, this child would have been caught up in one of Jack's merry games, playing in the snow and enjoying that mischief that Jack was so very known for. This boy that believed had very nearly been one of Frost's many targets, once upon a time, and only Pitch stepping in had stopped that.  
  
He sneered.  
  
Who did this child think he was, trying to take away everything that Pitch had worked hard to create? This kingdom of darkness and snow, Jack at his side and curled on his chest at night... this child was going to take it away, just by _believing_ in the damn _Guardians_.  
  
Pitch stepped from the shadows, forming into solidity again, and the boy, that dangerous threatening boy, he looked up sharply at his approach, and Pitch was pleased that at least fear shot through the heart of the boy.  
  
"Do you know who I am?" Pitch growled, lowly.  
  
The little believer swallowed, and nodded, eyes wide.  
  
"Good." He loomed over his bed, stretching his fingers out for a moment, then curling them tight back into fists again, like spiders skittering to get away on their webs. "We need to have a talk."

 

+++

 

Talking wasn’t Pitch Black’s usual way of dealing with problems.

And he didn’t intend to resort to it now.

The street was dark – of course it was, everything was beautifully dark now – and lit only by the bobbing light of t he flashlight that the small boy walking in front of him kept clenched in his white-knuckled hands. Pitch walked behind him, watching the tense lines of his shoulders as the boy trembled slightly, but he felt no sympathy. Frankly, what Pitch felt was _relief_. Though the boy’s belief was apparently strong enough to not only keep his belief in the Guardians alive, but also strong enough to help him let that belief spread through the other children like a disease, he still feared the Boogeyman. On some level, Pitch had thought that perhaps he’d find a boy whose belief in the Guardians was so strong that he wouldn’t even _see_ Pitch.

To know that this boy, this mortal child, still feared the Boogeyman told Pitch that he still had power here.

Power, he could use.

Nightmares circled them as they walked down the snowy, narrow track that had once been a main road, a main artery, in this little town. Once this road signified a way out, and now it was just a narrow attempt at freedom that led nowhere. There was no escape from the slow and frozen entombment of this world, not now, and those watching Nightmares were just waiting for their opportunity to show the trembling mortal this. Whenever that shaky flashlight beam would catch one of the circling Nightmares, the child known as Jamie would jump, the beam jolting and wobbling. Each time, the Nightmares would toss their heads, whickering their amusement as they drummed their death-shod hooves on the ice.

The boy’s shuddering breath fogged in the air ahead of him, but it seemed to be coming faster, now, curling around his head like a dragon’s smoke, curling like crooking fingers, enticing Pitch forward. _Come_ , that hesitant nervous breath, sweet from the naivety of youth, seemed to beckon. _Squeeze the life from him_.

“Wh – where are we going?” Jamie asked, suddenly, voice as tremulous as his breath.

“I told you,” Pitch said, liking the way that his speaking made the other’s shoulders hunch, as though his voice had the same effect as nails on a chalkboard. “I need to talk to you.”

“But _where_?” He demanded, not turning to look back at the spirit, eyes very firmly still on the narrow path through the snow.

Pitch grinned, toothily. The child’s fear was delicious. “There is the perfect place, just ahead.”

Honestly, Pitch didn’t know how it could have been more perfect, frankly, that the child who believed was from _here_. Perhaps it wasn’t coincidence.

Perhaps.

Unlikely, though.

Their destination, the one that was so very perfect, suddenly opened in front of them, as though it had been expectantly waiting. They had left the actual road behind a few minutes before, though there had been no real change in the narrow, snow laden path, except that instead of dark streetlights and shuttered houses on either side of them, there had been instead trees, bare and skeletal, their leafless branches reaching for the sky like hungry fingers. Even those fell away, now, though, leaving the way open and clear, ice spreading cold and clear before them. The wind had kept the ice-rink smooth surface of the large pond clear of snow, and though Jamie was wary, the boy stepped slowly out onto the ice, flash light beam bouncing and catching, making the ice under his feet seem to glow slightly.

No one knew where Jack Frost had come from, when he had appeared as a spirit all of those centuries ago, except, of course, for the Man in the Moon – and _he_ wasn’t exactly forthcoming with that information. All the same, while none of them knew the how or why of his arrival, they knew he was _there_ – and Pitch happened to have been near enough, at the time, to _see_ where he had been when he had appeared.

Clinging to the shadows, suspicious of this newcomer that the Man in the Moon had chosen, Pitch had watched as the spirit, lost and confused, rose for the first time from the waters of this very pond.

Even if Jack wasn’t _here_ because of Pitch’s insistence, it still seemed sort of full circle to bring the one that was threatening he and Jack’s empire _here_. 

As they stepped out further away from the edge of the land, the clouds overhead slid aside, and for the first time Pitch had seen in a very long time, the Man in the Moon dared to show his face. Silver light spilled out over them as though someone had tipped a bowl of it over the landscape, making everything sort of glow, a silver sheen over the landscape.

Let the Man in the Moon watch.

Frankly, Pitch wanted him too.

“It’s the pond,” Jamie said, once they were well out onto the ice. _Now_ he turned to face Pitch, fear and stubbornness both evident on his young face, the two emotions battling for dominance. Pitch was intrigued to see which of the two won, in the end. “I don’t understand. Why are we on the pond?”

Looping his arms lazily behind his back, Pitch began to walk slowly, in a slow but very deliberate circle around the child. Predator stalking his prey. “Have you heard of the Guardians, _Jamie_?”

The child looked like he caught the inflection with which Pitch said his name, as though it was something filthy that he wanted out of his mouth, because Jamie flinched. “Guardians of what?”

“Children like yourself – or so they’d like you to believe,” Pitch amended, spreading his hands to show exactly what he thought of _that_. “Santa Claus. The Tooth Fairy. The Easter Rabbit. The Sandman.”

Jamie’s eyes had gotten brighter with each name, until he was nodding eagerly, perhaps forgetting that it was to their mortal enemy that he spoke. “Yeah, of course I know them! They protect kids, they bring us joy and happiness, and make things _good_ and they make life worth living and they…” He trailed off, perhaps finally realizing the foolishness of extolling these virtues to the _Boogeyman_.

Pitch bent at the waist, hands still at his back, so that he was closer to the child, crowding into his space. “Is that so?”

The Nightmares crept closer, their hooves strangely silent on the thick ice, ravenous hunger shining in their golden eyes.

Jamie nodded eagerly, his attention wholly on Pitch.

Pitch waited til the Nightmares loomed over the child’s shoulders, then bared his teeth in a vicious grin, and demanded, “ _Then where are they now_?”

As one, the Nightmares reared up onto their hind legs, letting out high pitched whinnies of malicious intent, then they all slammed their front hooves down on the ice. It splintered under their hooves, cracking like a spider web design on a dropped mirror, spreading out across the surface of the pond. The boy let out a howl of shock, but the Nightmares kept up at it as Pitch stepped back, laughing at his struggle, his helpless, useless fear. It wasn’t the same sweet, innocent laughter of Jack Frost, but Pitch thought it beautiful all the same.

Jamie scrambled forward, trying to get out of danger, trying to get away, but the last piece of ice that was still holding his weight dropped out from beneath him, and Jamie dropped like a stone into the water.

Problem solved, Pitch thought. He’d been the last hold out of belief for the Guardians, and once he was gone, those foolish friends of his would stop believing again,  it was really only a matter of time. Darkness could always crush the delicate birdlike beliefs of the young, the crushing weight of reality smothering that tentative flame of innocence. 

Someone howled in rage, and Pitch’s head snapped up from the dark patch of frigid water to the sky.

It wasn’t _possible_ …

A sleigh, pulled by a team of eight prancing reindeer swung over the pond, and a massive figure, dressed in red velvet and fur, swinging a pair of curved scimitars, leapt from it, diving into the frigid water.

“ _North_ ,” Pitch hissed, lip curling back in a sneer. He would have thought by now that the old fool would’ve been weakened too much to be a threat, but no, of course the old codger would have swept into action the moment he’d managed to get a few more mortal children conned into believing in him again, and of _course_ he would sacrifice everything to save his last strongest believer….

Two could play at this game.

Sneering, Pitch held out a hand, his massive black scythe forming from the shadows, reminding him of Jack’s ever-present staff, and readied himself – and the Nightmares – for attack.

North burst from the water as though shot from a cannon, one arm stretched above his head, sword in hand like the avenging angel figurehead of a military vessel, the sopping – and unmoving – figure of Jamie draped over his arm. He landed in a crouch just beyond the black maw of the hole, fury etched across his face. “Pitch Black!” He roared, a bellow that rose from the base of that powerful chest. “This time you have gone _too far_!”

Pitch held out his hand, invitingly. The child still wasn’t moving – perhaps he’d managed to kill him after all. _Good_. “I welcome your criticisms, North.”

Santa Claus howled, and leapt forward at him, still holding the boy, trying to cleave Pitch’s head from his shoulders.

Throwing up his scythe, he met him blow for blow, grinning grimly, enjoying the way that the bulkier spirit _didn’t_ have the strength he’d seen in those muscular arms before, didn’t have the capacity to battle him the way he usually would – whether he had the limp body of the boy cradled in his arms or not, North simply wasn’t as strong as he used to be. 

The Nightmares let out equine howls of rage and violence, rearing on their hind legs, kicking at the air, trying to hit North, wanting to crush his head in with their hooves, attempting to smash the Guardian into the ice. Pitch was grateful for their support, but just wanted this to be over. Wanted North destroyed and gone, wanted him to never be a challenge again. He wanted the empire he shared with Jack, all ice and cold and beautiful darkness, to be _safe_ and theirs and free from the damned Guardians and their meddling. 

Didn’t they _deserve_ happiness?!

North’s scimitar caught Pitch’s upper arm, black blood flowing free, and he jerked back from the wound, teeth bared in a feral grin that was less about the pain of the wound – though it hurt more than he would have expected – and more about pushing through the pain to slash the other apart. He wanted to destroy his old enemy.

There was a howl of rage, and _that_ sounded more familiar than it should.

Pitch reeled around, startled by the sound, and though he let out a shout of _“No, I told you **no**_!” Jack Frost whipped into the midst of the crush of people on the North Wind, teeth bared like a wild animal, ice springing from his staff as he slashed viciously at Santa Claus, trying to tear the Guardian apart. He had been transformed, in that moment, from the innocent and sweet young spirit that he normally was, into a violent and vengeful animal that wanted to protect his mate, his lover, his partner. It was _beautiful_ , in a savage sort of way, a terrifying display of animalistic rage and instinct – and any trace of the innocent spirit that might spare innocents had been stripped away from Jack Frost. He was fully intent on destroying the Guardian that he had seemed to be ambivalent towards if not amiable to, before, _all because North had attacked Pitch_.

_That_ made his black heart swell with pride and pleasure. 

Jack Frost was _his_. 

Pitch, for that matter, belonged equally to _him_. 

North was caught off guard by the young spirit’s attack, pushed back onto the back foot, but he didn’t appear to let that keep him off balance long, because a moment later North struck back at the spirit, his scimitar hitting Jack’s staff hard enough for the sword to embed itself in the wood.

Displeased, Frost jerked on his staff, trying to free it – then let out a soft sound that Pitch had never heard before, a soft mewl that made the hair on the back of Pitch’s neck stand on end. 

Jack was still being held up by the Wind, clutching at his staff, but he wasn’t swinging into action anymore, wasn’t moving, he was simply _there_ , with a shocked look on his face, eyes wide. He looked stunned, as though he couldn’t quite understand why there was a sword emerging from the side of his chest as though one had grown there, burst from between his ribs. North looked about as shocked and horrified as Frost did, clearly not having expected the sword to have entered his chest, either. But there Jack stood, a half of his staff in each hand, cleaved in half by the sword that had swung at him and then kept going, right into his side. 

“ _Jack_?!” Pitch howled, and were he thinking properly, he would have realized how incredibly broken and horrific his own voice sounded. 

Letting out another of those soft sounds, Jack drew in a shuddery breath, then coughed it out again, blood dark on his lips, silver eyes wide as the Man in the Moon looked on, silver light glowing on this travesty.

“ _No_ ,” North breathed, looking as horrified about this as Pitch felt, even though all Pitch could feel was _rage_ boiling up in his chest, wanting to tear the old Guardian limb from limb. Stumbling back, North jerked the scimitar free of Jack’s chest without even seeming to realize that he was doing it, though he let out a soft sound of horror when the sword jerked free and Jack jerked, whole body following the blade for a moment, then slumping down to his knees on the ice. “I never meant – I didn’t _want_ …”

Pitch roared, reeling to face the Guardian, raising his scythe to cut him down, wanting to rip him _apart_ – 

“ _Pitch_ ….”

He might think that it was ironic to freeze at Jack Frost’s touch on his ankle, but at the moment, his mind was on a whole world of different things than just the _irony_ of his being frozen by the spirit of ice and snow. His mind was on his lover, on the boy that was slumped now, to the ice, blood pooling below him on the ice, dripping into the water, now. Pitch dropped down to crouch beside him, cupping his jaw in his hands, the scythe disappearing into the shadows as he met those silver eyes, which seemed to be _fading_. He didn’t even care, at that moment, if North chose that opportunity to strike back. Pitch thought, perhaps, that maybe he would welcome death if it came, now.

Penance, perhaps. Allow him to remain with the boy, certainly. 

“Jack, I have to tell you something,” he said, firmly, shaking Jack slightly when his eyes started to droop. “ _Look at me_! I have to tell you something. You listening?”

Jack shuddered, forcing his eyes back open. 

The world had been perfect. Carefully arranged, deliberately created – he had won the younger spirit’s trust, won him at his side, won him into his _arms_ – and he didn’t want to necessarily give up what he had developed here. But if he didn’t do it now, he was going to lose him entirely, and Pitch would rather lose him for just a _moment_ , rather than lose the other spirit forever.

Firmly, he said, “ _Wake up_.”

 

+++

 

** EPILOGUE **

****

Jack drew in a sharp breath, and his eyes snapped open.

Startled from his own half sleep - it wasn't sleep, exactly, the state that Pitch was in, but his Nightmares had been feeding him the visions that the slighter spirit had been wandering through in the dreams that Pitch had provided for him, so while he wasn't sleeping, Pitch had certainly been enjoying a dream - Pitch sat up straighter in his seat, looking over at the rough bed that he'd deposited Jack onto before he granted him his vision of their future.

The boy was panting, gasping for unneeded breath, eyes still wide open as though he couldn't quite believe that he was awake - then abruptly he slumped, and flopped back amongst the shadows, which puffed and shifted around him, unsettled by the sudden movement.

"Sleep well?" Pitch called, lowly, not wanting to push. After all, despite what he had seen in the boy's dreams, those had just been dreams, and weren't necessarily the truth. It wouldn't necessarily go that way.

The shadows shifted again, as Jack slipped out from them, though they still clung to him like light, diaphanous hands, clutching at his shoulders, and his elbows, trailing along behind him like a cloak of darkness. Jack padded over to his throne, looking down at Pitch - meeting his eye - for a long moment, then glanced at the globe. There were still golden lights on it, a lot of them still, but then, he hadn't actually put the plan into effect yet. Tooth still ruled her kingdom with all her fairies, so the strongest seed of doubt had not yet been planted.

But there was still also a good handful of silver lights spread amongst them, like diamonds tossed amongst a vat of golden coins, little bright spots that caught light better than the others, glittering bright as they stood out against the dark background.

"Was the dream true?"

Pitch glanced away from the globe, frowning. Frost's eyes were on the globe, not him, and his jaw was tightly clenched.

"Mmm.... are dreams ever true?" Pitch spread his hands out. "It was my very best guess, based on what information I have, based on what I know, based on what the Nightmares have told me of people's minds and the world around us. It's not perfect, as I can't tell the future, but I think it is a... fairly accurate prediction of what is likely to happen."

Jack drew a long, deep breath.

"Does that bother you?" Pitch purred, lowly.

"You got some details wrong, I think." He turned finally, those bright silver eyes looking down at him, seeming to bore deep into his soul. "That boy, Jamie, the one that believed... you really think that he'll continue to believe?"

"Unfortunately," he drawled, "I do."

"Because if he does... that makes things a little more difficult, doesn't it? Makes more sense to just make sure that North and the other Guardians just don't have something to make them stronger." Jack suddenly swung himself up, using his staff, to perch on the arm of Pitch's throne. Pitch blinked at him, surprised, but the boy seemed completely unphased, one of his knees tucked up to his chest, his other foot dangling as he kicked at the air. "See, a kid like that, they're easy enough to get them lost in the woods. Lure him out with a bit of magic, then all I need is for you toput him to sleep, and I can take care of the rest."

A shudder of dark pleasure ran down Pitch's spine, and he sat up a little straighter. This boy certainly knew how to take a good old nightmare and twist it into something dark and _beautiful_. 

"Is that so?"

"Yeah," Jack looked down at him, with that little crooked smirk, and arched a brow. "What, you don't think it's a good idea to get rid of our enemies _before_ they can stop us? Makes the conquer a little easier, doesn't it?"

"So it does." Pitch dipped his head, smirking back. "Anything else you think I got wrong in my dream, then?"

"I don't like waiting."

Jack twisted, then, dropping right into Pitch's lap, those freezing cold fingertips pressing to his cheek as he leaned up, frigid lips dropping onto his, moving against his. The fervor surprised Pitch, to be honest, but he certainly didn't complain, and instead reached up to let the shadows draw tighter around him, pulling Jack closer against his chest as he met the younger spirit's force in every match. He knew that Jack had dreamed this - and he certainly hadn't _minded_ the turn that said dream had taken - but he hadn't been sure if this would come to pass once Jack actually _awoke_ from his cleverly crafted nightmare.

He needed have worried.

Jack Frost kissed the Lord of Nightmares with a fever that his frigid bones hadn't felt in centuries, cold hands curled around the back of his neck, and the shadows curled around them both, curling around Jack, forming a dark cloak and hood around him. Jack shuddered, and spread one of his hands out flat against the back of Pitch's shoulders, filigreed ice, like the kind that permanently dusted Jack's hood and shoulders, curled out across Pitch's, giving him the same silver cold embroidery that the young spirit wore.

The cold surrounding the dark, and the dark surrounding the cold.

They were matched.

In every sense, when it came down to it.

_ After all, what goes together better than cold and dark? _

 


End file.
